Are you better off....?

It's a recurring question in the political drama that is filling the airwaves this summer: "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" Of course, one party wants you to say no, no way, no how; the other hopes you've already found the silver lining in the dark cloud that is our economy. If you look at life from a strictly economic standpoint, then the answer for many of us could be no. After all, the stock market tanked four years ago and ate up most of my recently rolled over 401k (along with other folks') and at the same time my home value tanked. Shortly before President Bush left office, the southbound economy took my job with it, along with my health insurance and a big chunk of my identity. I have not found another full-time job, so my income is not only irregular, but only a fraction of what I made when I had a job. For a while, I'll admit, I floundered. I bought into the idea that without a job and a paycheck my life wasn't as good as it had been. I worked for the census, scoured the want ads and worried about what I would do as my unemployment ran out. Then I took a walk with a dog, took a few deep breaths and said a lot of prayers. Now, almost four years later, I would have to say that yes, I am better off, if not in the balance of my net worth. The fledgling business I started before I was laid off has turned into my new career. As well as boarding dogs, which I love, I apprenticed with a groomer and added baths and trims to the business. I don't make a ton of money, work my tail off in the summer, and spend a lot of time with very little to do in the winter. While I really miss the interaction with the community that was part of my former job, I've got a whole new family of dogs and their people. The job is seven days a week (when there's anything to do) and holidays aren't down time, they are a busy time. There are no benefits, no wardrobe requirements (yes, I work in sweats and tees) and I pay my own insurance. At the same time, I don't have to worry about job security and the fitness plan (try walking up to 20 dogs a day) is great. I've made great friends and go to bed at night not only tired, but assured that I've done the job that I felt needed to be done in the way I wanted. Because my income fluctuates, I've learned to save. I can't count on the same income from week to week, so if it's a good week, I can't just spend it. There's no such thing as living from paycheck to paycheck. As a side effect of that, I'm eliminating debt (heck, I can't borrow any more). When the economy recovered enough for my retirement fund to pay off my house this summer, I did it. I saved enough money to trade cars and not have a car loan. I also put in a new heat pump and reroofed the house while there were energy credits for doing so. Next on my to-do list is a kitchen revamp (long overdue). Part of that frugal approach means we don't eat out like we did (have I mentioned my husband was only 9 months behind me in the layoff line?) With my old job, I was often too tired to cook, now it's still not a priority, but a long day won't end with dinner at a diner. I've got a garden and chickens (we had a lot of quiche this summer) and a freezer full of food. The eat-at-home option means not only cheaper eating, but healthier eating as well. We both have smaller sizes in the closet than we did four years ago. Money aside, the loss of a job has given me my life back. I go to church regularly, something my old job didn't allow, but which I practically write into my weekly schedule. Having that christian network to lean on makes my life richer and more stable. Taking time to worship and study God's word helps me feel better and be healthier at other levels. Even while those things alone would help me say my life is better, the addition of two wonderful granddaughters is the icing on the cake. The fact that I work at home means I'm able to care for them when their parents are both at work, an extra benefit of my change in career. They add a level of richness and excitement to my days that I would never have imagined four years ago. Yes, things have been tough at times and may be again. But losing my job was one of the best things that could have happened to me and my family. Ditto for my husband's career change. Am I better off? Maybe not when it comes to the way our society so often measures success, but I really don't measure it that way any more. In all the ways that count, my old life couldn't touch this one. The unequivocal answer to the question of the year, is your life better than four years ago, is yes.

The convertible has to go

It's time to face reality. Two grandchildren in the back seat of a convertible just isn't working for me any more. No matter how much I love the wind in my hair when the temperature is above 75, I can't turn the CD player up high enough to drown out the older one screaming "Too much wind!" Ok, so I don't really do that, and she will occasionally embrace leaving the top "open," but when I see them cowering in the back seat trying to keep the wind out of their eyes, I just can't do it.

And despite the fact that I've had a convertible pretty much continuously for a dozen years or so, and that it's like asking my honey to sell his Harley, I've admitted that it's time to do it. I've practically cried as I've listed its many attributes on CraigsList, AutoTrader, and a ton of Facebook pages. I've lovingly cleaned it and photographed it and tried to convince myself that I'll be happy in something else. But I know the truth is that I'll miss it as much as I miss the career I loved for 25 years. It will be like losing a tooth, it won't always hurt, but there will be a gap there. Of course, like losing a job, letting go of one thing opens the way for another. I've spent the morning browsing the internet for, now brace yourself, station wagons. Wow, the luxury of four doors and no need to practice a balanced yoga pose to maneuver a 20+ pound child into a car seat while teetering on the back of a tilted bucket seat. The magnificence of a large cargo area in which to stow a stroller, chicken and dog food, or even shopping bags. The idea of a hard top that I won't have to wonder if I've closed as well as possible when rain is pelting on the roof at 2 a.m. Yes, like letting go of chasing ambulances and covering long governmental meetings made way for days cleaning up the literal crap of dogs and little people, wearing casual clothes, and enjoying the total absence of deadlines, selling my convertible will open new doors (at least two of them to the back seat) and may in fact give me things I enjoy just as much. All the same, while I've looked at options ranging from captains' seats in the back and third row seating that folds down to all wheel drive, a CD changer, and heated leather, the option that has most caught my eye isn't really surprising. It's a moonroof.

A sad ending for Joe

I never met Joe Paterno or particularly cared that much about him as a football coach, but his death this weekend was particularly sad. Like anyone who watches college football -- and I watch a lot of college football -- I knew who Joe Paterno was and tended to agree with my husband that he seemed a little old to be coaching. Okay, a lot old. He was older than my grandfather when he died and he was trying to stay in touch with a group of college students (jocks) and keep them in line while planning winning football strategies. It seemed like a tough task for a much younger man, but in the end it wasn't his players that caused trouble, it was one of his fellow coaches. When the allegations came to light last fall about his assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, I was struck by how lost Paterno looked trying to process it. I imagined the great gulf between how my generation views the world and reacts to situations and how my grandfather would have reacted. I understood how he might have failed to make the right decision and produce the amount of rage against Sandusky that we would have preferred. Unlike those of us raised on the horrors that are now so commonplace, he had trouble imagining that his coworker and friend could be a monster. Any of us would have some trouble with that idea. Penn State, where a lot of people apparently underreacted to the allegations, overreacted when it came to Paterno's role. The governing body of the college fired him, not in a decent conversation in someone's office with the doors closed, but by phone. They began trying to erase what had happened, as though by giving up the good they could get rid of the bad. Photos of Paterno after he was dismissed showed a man who appeared to have aged a decade in a few short hours. A much beloved coach lost one of the things he really loved getting up for each day and had to sit powerless and watch as his legacy not only came to an end but was tarnished with ugliness of the worst sort. When he was diagnosed with lung cancer, it should come as no real surprise that he didn't have the will to fight it. While many cancers are now treatable and beatable, doing so requires physical and mental strength and determination that he no longer had. While his family still surrounded him with love, the game he loved was lost to him and his place in history was blurred and unclear. I hope the earthly powers that be will forgive his shortcomings and take no further action to erase his memory from the college program where he was so important for so long. Whatever failure he may have had has already been forgiven by the one who took away his pain. RIP Joe Paterno.

Fresh eggs and squirrel gravy

A casual chat about chickens with an almost neighbor whose dogs come to my house to get their nails done and a bath awakened in me a hunger for free range eggs. Although she was happy to bring some eggs at her next visit, I wasn't satisfied with anything less than a flock of my own. When Easter rolled around, the toddler and I selected a half dozen little balls of fluff. They soon matured into three Leghorn hens, a pair of giant roosters, and a big hen who collapsed and died. A search of CriagsList found a local farmer trying to sell a few young birds and I added a pair of Silkies and a pair of Rhode Island Reds to the flock, although it was just really good luck that we chose a hen and rooster of each breed. I also rounded up a rogue hen who was roosting on a former neighbor's car every night. She began laying right away, but for a long time the brown egg she left in the small house every other day was all I gathered. Instead, I gave away the giant roosters and spent a lot of time catching my Leghorns and clipping their wings. Silkies don't fly and the Rhonde Island Reds have never flown either. Now all the Leghorns are laying and the other two young hens are occasionally contributing a little egg here and there.

I love my chickens, but I really love the eggs. I also love to hear the roosters crow. The Silky has the deepest voice, although he's the smaller of the two roosters. He also pursues the hens with a passion. All of them. And I do mean passion.

The extra weight on the birds as they've begun laying mean that only one still feels the need to spend her nights on the four-foot fence that protects them from dogs and wild animals. She always returns to the lot in the morning so I haven't clipped her wings in a while. Our biggest issue now is that they want to lay under my the deck, which means crawling through the muck to get the eggs each day. When warm weather comes again, however, they'll be confined in the smaller lot with their house. Now they need access to the heated water bowl, and it's in the upper lot. By next winter, however, I'll have another plan for that.

As fall has turned to winter, and the hens have matured to the point that they prefer grains, the daily feedings attract more than the chickens. At first it was only one brave little fellow who was chased away by the red rooster shortly after he began eating. But he soon bought friends. The roosters and hens now ignore the little gray interlopers, although when the squirrels are joined by crows they sometimes chase the black birds away. Other birds also come and eat, including doves, blue jays and cardinals, and the chickens don't seem to mind. I don't mind the creatures of the wild joining in the meal. After all the birds eat in a feeder in the front yard all the time. But my favorites have to be the squirrels, who are becoming so tame that they no longer flee when I step out on the back porch, and sometimes stay in place when I start down the hill to feed the little flock.

Sometimes, however, when I look out the window and see a whole contingent of the little fuzzy creatures eating, I imagine what my grandparents would have done, even though it's not something I would ever do, or even enjoy. I find myself imagining a meal of fresh eggs and squirrel gravy with cathead biscuits. And even though I've never wanted to eat squirrel, I'm betting the grainfed little boogers would be good.

The lure of the soaps

Lately I've found myself giving into another guilty pleasure (besides "Hoarding") when I settle into a cozy chair and let the television take me from the midday news seamlessly into an alternate reality -- the world of the soap opera. While I don't go out of my way to watch "Days of Our Lives," and wouldn't schedule my day around it, I watch it with a sense of catching up with old friends.

My grandmother watched her "stories" when I was a child. Although she worked most of the time, when one of the periodic layoffs in the local textile plants left her at home in the afternoon, she'd be tuned into one soap or another. I grew up acquainted with the Hortons on "DOL" as well as other characters on the shows that took over our limited television channels throughout the afternoon. As I grew older, I forgot about soaps until I went off to college. There, suddenly, soaps were the rage and we scheduled our classes around time for our soaps. Bo and Hope were young star-crossed lovers on DOL. So were Jack and Jennifer. When it came time to choose classes for the quarter (yes, it's been that long), we'd block out our soap times first, avoid 8 a.m., and go from there. Then college ended, the star crossed lovers married (or perhaps in some cases didn't) and so did we. Looking back at Bo and Hope's wedding, I can vividly recall the 80s and where I was in my own life.

With a career and children of my own, I can't say I've actually given the characters on what was my favorite soap much thought in the last few decades. But lately I'm a stay at home caregiver and naptime, or often the time I'm waiting for the quiet that means little people are really sleeping, corresponds with Days of Our Lives. So I found myself watching and recognizing old friends. There was Marlena, the least changed, although she somehow wound up with John, not Roman, who I seem to recall died, then was not dead after all. The senior Hortons have passed away leaving mystery in their wake. Jack and Jennifer, looking a bit different from the teens I remember, have apparently been together and then apart and aren't sure where they are now.

Characters have died and been born, moved in and moved away, gone from bad guys to good. Children have aged at an unnatural pace, but otherwise, their scripted lives, minus the drama, have moved forward much as mine. Just like my friends and I, they've had children, made marriages work or not, made good choices and bad, drifted apart and reconnected. If you've ever watched a soap, then you know the feeling. Despite the often overblown situations, there's a sense of the familiar, an understanding and a comfort. Especially when you see that you're not the only one getting older. So are Hope and Bo.