Paying for Experience Instead of Family
Some stores sell goods. Some sell services. Starbucks sells an “experience”.
Ok, when did we get so deprived of real experiences that a cup of coffee is considered a thrill? And when did we get to where we are willing to pay for new “experiences” all the while crying that we cannot afford children?
I submit that people who have larger families do not need such experiences. When you have a bunch of kids who depend on you, you work harder. You see and experience things you cannot imagine you’d enjoy if you look at them from the outside. You learn things about yourself that you’d never imagine were there TO learn. And you find more in yourself than you’d ever find bungie jumping.
Parenting takes patience, time, courage, wisdom, and perseverance. No travel tour can substitute for that.
It is sad to me that people are running around looking for “fulfillment”, and “life”, and “meaning”, all the while running away from marriage and family. It is a catch-22. The further you run, the more you feel you have to get away. Conversely, the more you immerse yourself in the good of it, the less you feel like you need to be elsewhere.
It takes courage to admit to your teen that you made a mistake. It is exhilarating watching a baby laugh for the first time, or take their first steps. It is oh, so fulfilling when a child stops in their day to hug you just because you are Mom. And love, after 25 years of marriage, is even better than it is at 20… if you let it be! There is the challenge of teaching a kid to drive, and the triumph of helping them overcome a particularly difficult obstacle.
Ain’t nuthin’ that can compare to this.
Walking Away from Fragmentation
My imagination is so fertile, I have to reign myself in all the time. I run the risk of fragmentation on a perpetual basis! If I cut a bunch of things out so life seems more manageable, something seems to compel me to fill it up again.
But one thing I can absolutely recognize is fragmentation in other business owners lives! I think it may always be easier to see that in someone else than in ourselves.
One key is to fill a void – and I don’t mean that in the way it sounds! What I mean is we often consolidate, and declutter our lives, and then neglect to fill the time we just cleared with the stuff we intended to fill it with. We say we are so busy, we have so many things to do, we have to cut back. So we cut back, and instead of taking more time on the things we thought we needed more time for, we feel instead that we can just plop something else in its place!
Part of that is because sometimes we do some of the things we do for the purpose of procrastination, not accomplishment. I’d rather take on a new class, and complain that I have no time to meet both the needs of the clients and the need to prepare the curriculum, than to just focus on doing the yucky part of taking care of the jobs I already have. Not that those classes are a bad thing! They are great! But I’d rather prep curriculum than have to recode a template or troubleshoot a recalcitrant shopping cart any day!
I don’t know that the struggle to keep my tasks manageable will ever be easier. I do know that I learn as I go, and that the process of prioritizing is always a challenge – but that life is also incredibly rich and fulfilling. Feeling overwhelmed now and again seems a small price to pay!
Life’s Little Luxuries No More
When both parents work from home, reality changes. Some things get quite a bit harder. Little things that we took for granted are no longer possible.
- When we want to take time off, there is no vacation pay. If we get sick, there is no sick pay. We can’t take time off unless we are caught up, and financially ahead.
- Home is no longer the place where you do not have to worry about work. Work is part of every moment, there, filtering its way through your day.
- Hobbies have to be replaced with work tasks. There isn’t time to paint, or read very much for recreation, or to watch movies, or indulge in other time wasters. Those pastimes have to give way to paying endeavors. A lot of those are fun, so it isn’t pure drudgery, but we still have to choose wisely.
Daily decisions are different. We have to choose for business and family, and somehow balance the two. Sometimes we can’t do things we’d like, because we are self-employed. Kevin cannot go to Scout Camp with Alex and Erik this year. There is no way we can afford for him to take a week off. With a deadline looming, I had to choose carefully before going to a women’s church luncheon today. It is just the reality of balancing live where the time you put in, or do NOT put in, affects your ability to meet payroll a week later.
It is easy to take some things for granted when you are employed by someone else. That equation changes when you are solely responsible for every bit you earn though.
It isn’t all bad. By making extraordinary sacrifices now, we are building something better. And the rewards are purely wonderful. I’d go into detail, only I don’t want my site to be banned by family friendly websites! In between all the work, there is good interaction with the family, and working with our clients is purely a joy.
Working from home IS a lot about what you give up. But it is equally about what you gain. Benefits that I’d not trade for anything!
Systems in Business and Family
Business systems are NOT those things you see sold on 1 page websites where someone claims that you can buy their guaranteed “system” and just plug it in and have it earn money for you. That kind is always a fraud.
Business systems are any one of the following things:
- Tools that streamline a repetitive task.
- Routines that facilitate smooth functioning of a specific segment of your business.
- Processes that are implemented to ensure fast and predictable results.
- Anything that you analyze, improve the performance of, and then repeat at higher performance.
Good business systems help to keep a business moving forward and help it absorb changes in personnel, clients, and projects. Good systems adapt easily to change, and are designed with sustainability in mind.
When I first learned about business systems, I realized that my father had taught me about them long ago. He just did not label them. I remember him saying, as he taught me to vacuum the shop floor, “Do it systematically!”
I also realized that I had already been using systems in our home – with a big family, certain things have to be done around routines, and standards. We had a daily routine. We had systems for giving haircuts, washing dishes, preparing meals, answering the phone, and yes, vacuuming the floor.
Within a family, some people wonder whether routines will replace humanity. In a business the same danger exists. This is why the best systems are flexible. They take into account the differences in individuals, and the need for periodic assessment and change.
Once you realize the power of systems, they become a terrific tool for keeping order in either a home, or a business, and especially when the home IS the business! They can smooth out regular annoyances, get you over the hard times of day, and help your kids know what is expected so they can meet that expectation.
In a business, they become the glue that holds the business together during the busy times, and through growth. That’s a powerful tool!
Contemplation, Rumination, and Communication
Sometimes it is difficult to know just how much to say publicly. If you tell a story about a client, that client may read that story, and even if you omit names, they may put two and two together. So when you have examples of negative things, you have to be careful what you say, and how, and to whom. Even if you don’t hurt their business, you may offend.
It is even more sensitive with family. How much do you say, when they may be the next visitor to drop in on your blog, just because. How many of these blogging mommies out there will one day be hated by their children for the things they said of them in public?
That said, sometimes it is very hard being a mother with grown children, with both of you trying to carve out an identity and a career. Kids, like clients, can often be difficult to communicate with. In the age of communication ease, the task of actually HEARING hasn’t really become any easier.
One thing is certain – we must make sure that what we say online does not become a substitute for what we say each day to our loved ones. They aren’t going to read our blogs to find out that we were pleased with something that we felt was brag-worthy. And they could care less that someone on such and such a forum knows that they did something great, if we have failed to say it to their faces.
The internet has truly added more tools for talking. But I think it has also added layers of complexity to the simple tasks of relating to those whom we most need to talk to.
How Many Plates Can You Drop at One Time?
The students had all informed the class of their plans. All but one, that is. He said he was not ready to say anything about it. The next time we met though, when his turn came, he leaned forward slightly, and said, “I can assume that client confidentiality would apply here, and that you’d not try to use my idea?” I assured him that I would not. Inwardly, I felt like bursting out laughing.
It had nothing to do with his idea. It was a good idea. But it wasn’t MY dream! It was his. Where the heck would I fit in the time to steal someone else’s dream? I’m having enough trouble carving my own down to size!
I’ve consolidated and eliminated and compacted and given sites away wholesale. I’ve put sites up for sale that I never thought I’d sell, and felt relieved to see them go. I’ve never looked back – I’ve never even looked to see what the new owners did with them. Instead I looked for the next thing to trim down.
We now have three business lines, all of which are interrelated. It works out very nicely. But I do have to juggle my time. There just isn’t enough to go around otherwise.
I meet people now who are just like I was when I started up – dabbling with this, tinkering with that, spreading myself out to see what all I could do. And I did a lot! I learned a lot! A good deal of it now stands me in good stead to enhance the services we offer. But I can recognize someone in that same stage. It usually means they have not settled on something definitive, that they aren’t quite certain what their business identity is, and that they are not quite ready to be totally serious about something that could succeed in a big way. They are still trying things on for size, unwilling to commit to just one concept. Uninspired as yet with the grand plan, not yet believing quite that they can achieve the huge and astounding.
You can spin a lot of plates as long as each one is not too demanding. Once you grasp on to a few big ones though, you have to let some of the little ones go. The big ones take more attention, and more muscle, and more experience to keep going. They also demand absolute dedication.
I’ve got three big ones going. I’m letting the rest go, because if I try to keep some of those little ones going, I’ll drop a big one. I don’t have time to pick up someone else’s plate and try to keep it going too… There isn’t any time for that!
So don’t worry about talking to me about your dream. I’m happy to brainstorm with you to help you succeed, but I don’t want your dream. And don’t invite me to join your MLM team. I don’t have time for that either, and if you think that I do, then you have not yet grabbed hold of something absorbing and fulfilling. I’m not about to go chasing the illusion of easy wealth, and risk dropping the real thing.
If you feel like you are about to drop something, then I suggest you make SURE something drops. Because if you CHOOSE what drops, you’ll keep the important stuff going. The stuff that can take you somewhere amazing.
Christmas Survival Strategy
I have an infallible strategy for surviving Christmas. Since I have lots of kids, and lots of extended family, and a business, Christmas survival is very important. If I tried to do it all, I’d crumple into the corner in a sobbing heap and not get back up! So here is my three part strategy:
1. Procrastinate as long as possible on gift buying. This frees me from worry until at least a week before Christmas!
2. I don’t. I don’t decorate, I don’t bake, I don’t dress in cute Christmassy Clothes, I don’t worry about being festive. I just try to be kind, try to get through what is most important each day, and don’t worry about what anyone else might think. My kids decorate the tree and cut out paper snowflakes, and do other festive stuff. I let them and feel grateful that I don’t have to fuss with it. I do sing carols, we sing in a production of the Messiah, and we have Christmas traditions. I just don’t overload myself with it.
3. I’m cheap. I don’t overload the credit cards or spend excessive amounts. $20 is the limit that we spend on ANYBODY at Christmas, unless we do something special for the family. Usually my limits are even lower than that. If I tried to do something extravagant for everyone on our list, I’d spend more than we earn in a month. So frugal is the order of the day. We do try to select things that are useful, appropriate, and that are selected for the individual in question.
Yes, I suppose I am sort of extreme about some of these things, but the alternative is getting out of my depth, getting warped every Christmas, and feeling overwhelmed. I refuse to do that, because frankly, all those things just AREN’T really important! Caring for my family, meeting the needs of our clients so our family can eat, and making sure that my marriage is strong are the priorities. When anything else cuts into those, out it goes! There just isn’t room in my life for all the trivialities.
Who is it that decides that you have to have your house decked out to the point of frenzy, the freezer full of hand-baked goods, and the tree loaded with thousands of dollars of gifts anyway? I’ll tell you who:
Sellers
They don’t want you to do this to make you happy. They want you to do this to BUY THINGS. Decorations, gifts, ingredients. They don’t care if you are benefited by it or not.
You can have a perfectly happy Christmas with a few strands of decorations that your kids made, some gifts that you purchased from love instead of a desire to impress, and with a few carefully chosen items that you made just because they were the ones you thought were most important.
The key to it is to determine not which things are VISIBLE, but which things have the most MEANING. Keep them. Let the rest go.
It’s Just Life After Cancer
Alex’s blood tests were ambiguous. They contained “immature cells”. For a kid who has come out of chemo for Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia, that is unsettling news. The lab said they’d get the results confirmed and clarified, and that we’d have to wait until they did. That was on Friday.
Of course, no one was in a hurry over the weekend. Had this been the relapse it very well could have been, the four days that it eventually took just to get the results back could have made a huge difference in his prognosis. Relapse is grim enough as it is, and delays make it worse.
We agonized over the weekend, and through Monday, calling to find out what the status was. We were finally informed on Tuesday afternoon, that he had “reactive cells”. This was their way of telling us that it was normal cells, but cells which are not normally found in the blood (they are normally confined to the marrow). There are three basic times when they come into the blood stream – when the body is reacting to an illness (generally a significant one such as flu or mono, or something else that you know they had), when the body has been subject to trauma, or when the body is stressed by a disease process (cancer can be one of those, or Crohn’s, or other serious but silent illnesses).
To our knowledge, Alex has none of those. His weight had also dropped significantly, and he is looking very skinny and losing strength, feeling fatigued and cranky. Nothing dramatic, but there, and worrisome. The very symptoms he had four years ago at initial diagnosis.
His other blood counts are not typical for a reaction that would normally accompany the presence of reactive cells – no atypical rise or fall in other blood counts. Just this one odd blip, and lymphyocytes on the high side of normal.
But this is, again, all part of living after treatment for cancer. You never see illness the same again. It is not a panicky feeling, though you do worry. And you know, as few parents do, the urgency of getting results in a timely manner. You watch for signs and indications that most parents never think twice about. And it will never go away. There is no known outside range at which B-cell Leukemias have a zero risk for relapsing. It gets less likely over time, but it never completely goes away. You learn to be vigilant – not overreactive, you just pay attention. Because it matters.
We learned things from this. That we were woefully unprepared financially for a crisis of this magnitude. That we are mentally well prepared – we knew within half an hour of the news, just how we would handle it if it were a relapse. We knew within days what our best treatment options would be, and how we’d handle the difficulties that could cause. We knew we’d be ok if it WERE a relapse.
And we learned that four days is far too long to wait for test results. We’ll be using a different lab from now on. One that can determine leukemic blast cells from myelocytes right away.
Alex goes back to the doctor in another week, for a repeat CBC and checkup, to see whether he is still in a decline, or whether he had something going on in the background that he is bouncing back from. So the worst worry is over, but a niggling one remains.
And it probably always will.
The Difference Between Privilege and Responsibility
His eyes lit up as the knife was held out to him. His first chance to use the knife to divide something. He eyed the pie carefully, considering how he could cut it into six pieces while still reserving the largest piece for himself. He poised the knife to cut, just a little off center, and then froze as he heard his mother utter these words:
“You have to take the smallest piece.”
Suddenly his entire goal shifted. From the goal of getting more, he now has the goal of being scrupulously accurate! He now has a responsibility to be fair, added to what he thought was merely a privilege! He considers more carefully, and checks all options before he makes the first cut.
He learns more as time goes on, about being the one with the responsibility for the wellbeing of more than just himself. And much of it goes back to those words on the first occasion that he was entrusted with the knife – “You have to take the smallest piece.” He learns that even when he tries his hardest, sometimes inaccuracies WILL happen. And that he must accept the outcome even when there was no fault on his part. Sometimes there are consequences that we don’t intend, that we have to make up for anyway. We musn’t require others to do that for us.
Privilege is often thought of as something ungoverned. It is only as time goes on and we mature that we realize that it comes with a price, and that it must be earned. And that the hidden responsibilities that go along with it are far weightier than we had originally considered.
In business, this marks the difference between true integrity, and the mere appearance of it. The appearance considers only what they perceive that people will notice, while in the background, retaining the thought, “How can I get a bigger piece than they do without making it LOOK like I did it on purpose?”. True integrity means you always take the smaller piece when you were responsible for creating the pieces. That you look out for the interests of your clients, associates, and even your competitors. That the Golden Rule is carried through every level of everything you do.
The result is pretty awesome – customers who come back again and again because they know you will never cheat them. And beyond that, they know that you will consider their needs and situations as carefully as you consider your own. All other things being equal, such a business will always do better than the competition.
From Durable, to Consumable
We are watching an evolution in our marketplaces. It has been happening for many years, and it has gained a little attention, but perhaps not what it should.
Manufacturers are changing durable goods, to consumbable goods. Durable goods are those that last long enough that purchases are infrequent. Consumable goods are those that we “use up”, and purchase more of. Traditionally, durable goods included clothing, tools, appliances, equipment, etc. Today, we see a trend, inspired partly by greed, to make durable goods consumables.
Consider – How long does clothing last now, compared to how long it lasted 20 years ago? A computer, once a 5-10 year purchase, is now a 1-3 year purchase. Appliances break and are discarded in 2-3 years. Washers and dryers, which once had a 10 year warranty, now have a 1 year warranty. Vacuum cleaners have plastic parts, and wear out in a very short time under use within a family (one of ours lasted just 4 months, and it was not abused). Athletic shoes are made to last “one season” – that is, 3-4 months.
Prices have come down on many of these items, but durability has definitely taken some heavy hits. We live in a plastic world – I don’t mind plastic in general, if it is tough plastic. But many of the items that are being made from plastic are being made from plastic that is too weak to stand up to the average use of the product.
We’ve also seen a trend of lowering the prices of durable goods, while increasing the price of their related consumables. Printers are the best example of this – A printer used to cost several hundred dollars, but the ink cost $20 for a large cartridge. Today’s cartridges cost between $20 and $45, and hold less than a quarter of the ink the old ones held. But printers are cheap. In fact, printers are SO cheap, that it was once less expensive for us to purchase a new printer on sale than it was for us to replace the ink cartridges!
A durable good allows a manufacturer to profit just once per customer, for a specific period of time. A consumable good has them coming back, again and again. But the cost of making “disposable” goods in place of durable goods runs through more than just our pocketbooks. Environmentally, it has a huge impact. And it has a negative affect on society as a whole, in perpetuating the myth that nothing is permanent, and that if something bugs you, just throw it away.
Some say this is just a reflection of the society we live in. It should not be. The trend is disturbing, and continued, will have disastrous effects on the ability of families and small businesses to survive. If you have to not only plan to get something you need the first time, but also to afford to replace it every year, your budget is quickly out of control.
I see no solution though. I think in this instance, greed will out.
The Flu… and the Flu again, and Something Else
Eavesdropping on our family would be horridly unexciting. The sounds lately consist mostly of sniffs, coughs, harrumphs, snorts, low pitched nasal voices, and frequent whining. When everybody is sick, everybody has to do their chores anyway!
David did it. He came home from camp with a pretty severe respiratory virus. Erik got it. Then he got something else. Then he got a cold, all in rapid succession. Then David got the cold, Alex got a fever and headache, then Adriene, then Betsy, and about the time that Alex got the cold, Kevin and I came down with the fever and aches. No cough yet. I’m TIRED of everybody being sick. I’m tired of the sounds of mucus being expelled from bodily orifices. I’m tired of running out of Kleenex! Our acetaminophen and ibuprofen budget is out of control!
So Kevin and I, neither one feeling too good, tried to build a small porch today for a trailer house. Both of us moving slowly, worn out. Like a bad carpentry show in slow motion. But being self-employed, you work. You work even when you feel sick, as long as you are able. Nobody will pay us to stay home and wrap up in a blanket and force fluids. If we don’t work, there is no income. And we need income! The result was solid – but it wasn’t much work for a whole day!
We’ve been enjoying life around the illness though. It is good to have David home, with his humor and helpfulness. I took him to pick up his brand-new glasses yesterday. He asked me how fragile the filament was that held the lense in on the bottom. I told him I though it must be pretty sturdy, after all, Kevin has had a pair of glasses with half frames for about 4 years, and it has never broken. On the way home, after getting the glasses, David made an attempt to adjust the frames, and pulled the wrong way. The filament on the left frame snapped before we were even halfway home (it is an hour drive home, but STILL!). He sat there feeling really foolish, with a brand new pair of glasses with just one lens. He contemplated the possibilities of monocles – and abandoned the idea when holding the lens in with just his eyebrow and cheekbone gave him a cramp. The glasses lay in his other hand looking pathetic. After about 10 minutes, he perked up, and said, “Maybe I could just tell the other kids that I got contacts!”
The kids started homeschool yesterday. David is a great help with it, and Erik is now learning to tutor his siblings also. I was proud of them, they got right to their schoolwork without anyone having to tell them to, and they worked diligently to finish their lessons TWO DAYS IN A ROW! I know that the honeymoon is going to be over probably Thursday. After that, there will be the usual “I can’t find my pencil”, and “I didn’t eat breakfast yet!”.
And in all of this, I made two critical business decisions. The two sites I’ve had for sale forever, which are worth every bit I am asking (hey, they make me money… people think I’m gonna GIVE them away?), which I get LOTS of nibbles about, but which everyone runs from when they realize I want an actual amount of money for it, are no longer for sale. I’ve decided to rebuild them in a CMS, so I can expand their features. A monstrous amount of work, no idea HOW I’ll fit it in, but know that I have to so they can keep earning for us. Yes, that was two business decisions… keep one, keep the other. Two choices.
We’ll also be doing a booth at the Casper Events Center for the Idea Expo. This is our target market, and it makes sense. It is pricier than our usual, but should be worth it. This is one of those scary things though – going out on a limb to gather the resources to get everything together for it. Gotta go out on a limb to get the best fruit though.
Our son reports for his mission on the 24th of October. The same day our daughter is scheduled to ship out to Kuwait, for training to go into Iraq. Bit of an irony, really.
The American Dream
Imagine this:
You get up in the morning, shower, and have a leisurely breakfast with your family. Your kids settle down to school work (or head off to school), and you and your spouse go to work – in your home office. You each have your own tasks to accomplish, and frequently share information across the room. Sometimes your spouse pauses to flirt with you.
Lunch means stopping long enough to fix whatever you want to eat, and enjoying it with your spouse or your entire family (if you are fortunate enough to homeschool). Then it is back to work until just before dinnertime. The kids help with the family business with age appropriate tasks in the afternoon, and are given payment for their help.
Everyone pitches in to fix dinner, and then to cleanup afterward. The kids settle down to read or watch a movie, and you and your spouse go for an evening walk around town. You stop occasionally to greet neighbors who are outside in the dimming light. It gets dark when you are still several blocks from home, but you don’t worry about your safety. It is just nice being with the love of your life.
Ever had a day like that? Small town America, self-employment, working in harmony with your spouse, working in a family business where the whole family works together, being able to walk around town and know who your neighbors are, and feeling safe walking after dark.
This is my life. Every day is not idyllic.. far from it. We have to drive an hour to get anywhere, the kids squabble and have to be taught not to, just like any kids. But I live a life that most people think they dream of. They do not see the other side of it – the sacrifices we make to keep this life. The house we live in that isn’t all that great, the older cars we drive so we can afford to live where the distances eat cars and spit out the pieces, or the times we bite our tongues to keep the peace in our home.
There is no pool, there is no expensive car. There are no vacations to exotic places – the Platte River or the Guernsey Wagon Ruts are as exotic as it gets. But we don’t need those things to be happy. The real happiness comes from our relationships in our family.
Life is good. And getting better.