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Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
-- Arnold Lobel
Disclaimer
We are not professional anything except academics. Seek advice from real professionals before making any financial or other life-changing decisions.
I wanted to have a cheerful money post because the stuff in the drafts right now is a lot of dark stuff about income inequality, and Little Kitty is not doing well and may need expensive medical treatment so talking about renovating the kitchen is not happening right now. So I am going to share some news from #2!
After a year of funemployment, her DH has decided to go back to work and has a job offer that he’s negotiating with a firm that he really likes. It’s a hefty paycut from what he was making at the job he left, and he’ll probably keep drawing down money from previous dot com boom stock options to keep his current standard of living, but even so, he’s got a nice salary. They’re back to upper-middle-class status.
Yay money!!!
Also yay being able to get a tech job after 40. There’s hope for us…
When I see you, my heart still skips a beat. You are the most handsome man I know, and I love the distinguished grey at your temples, the ever deepening crinkles around your eyes.
When we touch it still tingles just as much as it did when we were 17. And it tingled a lot at 17. One difference that time and proximity has brought is that cuddling close to you can provide more peace and calm than it ever did at age 16 or 17. Being with you has always felt immeasurably right. We are supposed to be together. God is in His heaven and all is right with the world when you’re near.
I still have a hard time believing that I get to spend my life with you. That I share your bed at night. That we’re *supposed* to spend time alone together, completely unchaperoned. Even though it’s been that way for 18 years.
Life with you is exciting and also warm and comfortable. You provide every positive emotion for me, just by being who you are. I am so lucky. So very lucky. You’re amazing and I never want to have to imagine life without you and your beautiful wonderfulness.
You’re mine. I’m yours.
We fit well together.
I love you so much. Today and every day. I love you.
There are a lot of links this week about Trump’s policy of separating children, including infants and toddlers, from their parents for unknown periods of time. I have grouped them all together and have also included some things that you can do if you’re an American citizen. Of all the things the Trump administration has done, so far this one is the worst, IMO, although there are a lot of contenders for most lives destroyed among their many policy decisions. Every day that they delay in fixing this more children are torn from their parents. As of Friday, the number is 2000.
What is going on at the border is horrifying, but we can’t go numb and turn away. We have to keep fighting this until it stops. We must.
What can you do? 5Calls has scripts you can use. The bill in the senate is the Keep Families Together Act. The bill in the House is the HELP for Separated Children Act. Do not be fooled by Cornyn’s “Humane Act”– it is anything but. Here are some scripts you can use from Celeste Pewter, along with additional activism items you can do. Note that if you live in Texas near the border, she suggests talking to your local city/county/state legislative staff. Donate to Raices Texas to help keep track of families and to help with bail for adults. There’s probably other places to donate, but I’m not linking the others I’ve seen because I’m not sure how legitimate they are. Feel free to post any you know about and trust in the comments.
When we rip children out of their parents’ arms and keep them in cages in a Wal-Mart, we are the enemy. We are the baddies. That’s us. This is America. Until we swallow that fact, we can’t fix it. We have to fully admit what we do.
something I think about often is how so many public atheists decided to focus on The Looming Tide of Islamic Horror instead of this shit https://t.co/YcnfS7wPQm
Republicans used an unprecedented blockade to steal a Supreme Court seat. Now the judge sitting in that stolen seat casts the deciding vote to disenfranchise voters who mainly oppose Republicans. https://t.co/8ZsF3v70BS
Hey, Ohio Voters, don’t be an Ethan Hawke. Go to https://t.co/z7v9TRUvel to make sure you’re not a victim of "The Purge." (Thank you, we enjoy this topical tweet as well.) #SamanthaBee
Existing only in relation to someone else. I don’t really find much identity from being a wife or a mother… I feel like those are things I do (though I also see the wife thing as a bit of armor, since my DH looks scary and like he could protect me from harassment). But I do have a lot of identity tied up in my career and training– being an economist really is what I *am*. The poster tweet in the comments is really amazing.
As #NetNeutrality ends today, this could be your future on the Internet. Fortunately, eight states (HI, NJ, NY, MT, RI, VT, OR, WA) have taken steps to maintain net neutrality, and 29 total states have introduced bills to ensure net neutrality continues. https://t.co/Hvcn0Y1leJpic.twitter.com/fsHoYBvRJF
I can answer this one for #2 too since she traumatized me with the NIN cd by letting me know she played it whenever she was feeling sexually frustrated. On the other hand, she’s also responsible for my love of They Might Be Giants, which is a good thing. And we both loved the spectacular girl bands of the time, with a special love for Salt n Pepa.
More seriously, like most kids growing up in the 1990s we were really into alternative. #1 also really liked heavy metal because of an ex-boyfriend and musicals because she grew up with them and monty python from another ex-boyfriend, and opera from growing up, especially from the Romantic period. Also classical music from the Romantic period more generally.
Most of #1’s music likes come from other people, either a roommate or an ex-boyfriend. Seriously, I honestly disliked 70s music until I got a crush on a guy who loved it in college. (He ended up dating one of my friends who shared his love from her own interests rather than his transferred interests. He’s also the guy whose glass I accidentally broke with my wrist.)
Ugh, now I have the worst song from Pretty Hate Machine stuck in my head. Why? Why? And it keeps interlacing with Wonderwall which one of my other high school roommates would play on repeat until I had no choice but to hate it. All we need now is the base from Under the Bridge by RHCP which the upstairs people would blast every morning at some UNGODLY hour and we’ll have all my least favorite high school music associations combined. Oh, except the next door neighbors one year who would crank up the base at like 6am on Saturday and Sunday mornings with their boombox next to our beds so the beds would shake us awake, but it wasn’t the same stuff each time. We were the ones who got in trouble for retaliating when they didn’t stop after we’d asked them to politely multiple times (I believe we left a note under their door saying something to the effect of, “Jesus wouldn’t play His boombox so loud that it made his neighbors’ beds shake a 7am on a Sunday after repeatedly being asked not to”). I hate fake Christians who are too selfish to be considerate of others’ sleep needs. /end rant from being 17 years old Man, I did not need that memory. I’m *still* angry about it! I bet she voted for Trump.
Here’s #2’s actual answer:
Music I liked in hs that I still like now:
Pretty Hate Machine by NIN
U2
music from the Renaissance era
Baroque music
Salt-n-Pepa
some Madonna
musical theater
Music from hs that I now can’t stand:
most of Red Hot Chili Peppers
Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden
I was actually going to mention a whole album here that used to plague me, but to my delight, I have totally forgotten what it was. (#1 suspects it was wonderwall) (it actually wasn’t)
How do I become more patient? I can think of good reasons to be more patient (e.g., “this is just their policy for their business, it’s not personal against you, you know.” and “this isn’t that big of a deal, you can let it go” and “fuming doesn’t help anything and being calm might get better results” and even “bless their hearts, they can’t help being stupid, poor things”) but NONE OF THEM WORK.
I am all out of patience for [BS] and I’d like to buy some more, please. How?
#2: I don’t think you should do illicit drugs. And you’ve tried CBT, so probably not that. And having kids is probably also a non-starter. Have you considered distracting yourself with novels?
#1: It’s kind of hard to do when my boss is in the same office with me
#2: I guess you have to distract yourself with other work then.
Our DDA (dependent daycare account) provider this year has been super obnoxious. After years of correct and mostly easy (they would occasionally lose a fax, but were otherwise ok) handling of reimbursements, this year has been a huge amount of pain. Last semester any time that we had to pay for a day off from school, the claim would be denied because we’d already paid for after school care for the semester. This semester I did the day/week off reimbursements first and I hit a bunch of flags trying to submit my claim for after school care for the semester.
While I was poking around trying to figure out how much to charge for the semester’s after school care given that we’d paid for the full year, I noticed that the number we got reimbursed was not equivalent to half of the full year charge. I thought that was odd and looked at our additional documentation. I’d requested half the amount, but it hadn’t been reimbursed fully because my DDA hadn’t been debited that much yet. Usually this isn’t a problem– they reimburse what they can and then reimburse the remainder the next month when my DDA gets the new payment. This time they did not do that. They *said* in the error message that came with the claim that they would do it, but then they never did.
Often you think you’re done with some kind of paperwork, but then for whatever reason it never fully executes. It’s irritating, and adds to mental load. But not paying attention can lead to lost money.
I added the difference to this semester’s claim. That’s easier than calling them up and getting them to fix it that way. There’s plenty in the DDA to cover it. I also added a note to the form explaining how each type of care I had requested for reimbursement purposes did not actually conflict. We’ll see how many errors they throw up this time.
Have you noticed any billing/reimbursement/etc errors recently? How often do you check? How do you remember to check?
Misogyny has such a privileged, protected place in the media. Imagine: "Hate on David Duke all you want, but he's tapping into frustrations black people and Jews shouldn't ignore. If black people and Jews don’t like his message, maybe they should offer a better one." https://t.co/Bysr7roJqy
We are currently unable to comment on several blogspot blogs. (We’ve also been able to comment but probably got sent directly to spam by Miser Mom’s blog…) So we can’t comment on this post by Something Remarkable. Neither of us has sold a house, so we don’t know! But if you’re asking, is there a really big amount that you’re allowed to get for capital gains on a primary residence that you’ve lived in a longish time without paying federal taxes, the answer is yes (and here’s an updated for 2018 post on the topic). Looking at the comments today it looks like you were asking a much simpler question though. You’re asking: If I bought a house for 100K, and I have 50K remaining that I owe on the house if I pay it off today, and the buyers pay $200K for my house, then how much cash do I get when the transaction is complete… you should bet 200-50 = 150K, minus transaction costs. (Note– this is what Amanda E Perrine said in the comments.) I don’t think that’s the same as your equation, though I’m not clear on a couple of the variables in it. Your capital gains would be a more complicated question, one that takes into account your purchase price and then I think some upkeep stuff but I’m not 100% sure, but if your current price is similar to your original purchase price, then there’s no way you’re going to have to pay capital gains so you shouldn’t need to dig up improvement documents. As for the deep existential questions posed in the comments, SUNK COSTS. (But you do you.)
