A Death in the Family

At noon today our son’s iguana died. She came into our lives 4 ½ years ago and had made herself part of the family, and now it feels like our family is incomplete. Our son has taken it pretty hard so far, with a lot of emtion coming through his usually stoic demeanor. I wasn’t as intensely bonded as he was, so mainly I’m grieving for him.

After we buried her in the backyard I remembered a line from the liturgy used in our church’s blessing of the animals service. The congregation reads a list of reasons why our pets are important, and one is that pets teach our children to love and to grieve. I’d always appreciated the wisdom of that line, but from now on it will have heart-meaning too. Whenever I read that sentence I will remember the tears at the graveside by the lilac bush.

In college I was depressed for a long time over the break-up of a relationship, and I seriously considered that maybe the natural state of human emotions is neutrality, and that every ounce of joy and love must be repaid with an equal measure of sorrow and grief. Although there may be a philosophical argument for this symmetry, the evidence of our lives says not so, or else we would learn to live in numb isolation, never taking in pets, never marrying except for a tax break, and never voluntarily having children. Some inner optimism drives us on to seek love and relationship, knowing full well we will pay a price in grief, unless we die first.

Two Weeks To Go

The anticipation and anxiety are growing as I wind down to the last two weeks of full-time work. I didn’t give a standard two-week’s notice to my employer but instead tried to negotiate a transition that would start after May 12. Nothing has come of the negotiations and I’m treating the next two weeks as my last. Whether or not I do negotiate some technical support work for them after May 12, things are going to change dramatically. Certainly it will be the end of full-time work and a steady paycheck for the foreseeable future.

Most of the time I’m looking forward to rearranging my work life, but I am already having anxiety attacks about money. That is my biggest fear on the work front, that all I will accomplish is trading the stress of holding a job I’m not interested in for the stress of not earning enough to maintain our lifestyle without running down our savings. Then I remind myself that a major goal—maybe the biggest goal--of my life redesign is to apply my creativity to figuring out ways to make money that aren’t at all obvious to me now.

Strawberry Scones for the Dungeons & Dragons Crowd

On alternate Saturday nights our son and his girlfriend play Dungeons & Dragons with a group of adults. A big part of the event is gorging on snacks, and usually we toss him a bag of chips or a box of cookies on his way out the door. This Saturday morning I made a rare foray to the grocery store and saw strawberries for a dollar a pound, so I had to buy a pile. Then I decided to get really ambitious and make strawberry shortcake for the evening festivities. I’m not much of a baker, so the boxed mixes were tempting, and when I saw a box of Krusteaz scone mix, with a picture of strawberries on top, I was sold.

When I got home I found the instructions for fooling with scones a little intimidating, so I gave up on the medieval imagery and went back to shortcake. The project was difficult at first because the dough was a sticky mess, impossible to knead. But after drying out and/or picking up some flour, it eventually became workable and I was able to roll out and cut decent-looking shortcakes. The strawberries were early and they didn’t mash at all, so I buzzed them in the blender with a little sugar to make sauce, and I cut up another bowlful of strawberries for eating straight or with shortcake. I also cut up a pound for freezing.

When I cook, which is rarely, I’m usually reminded of the comment in The Vegetarian Epicure that feeding someone is more than providing food, it’s really an elemental way of caring for someone. It felt good to be taking care of this group, which has meant so much to our son. It also felt good to be more connected to and mindful of food than I usually am. More food preparation should be a part of my redesigned life, I thought.

I sent the kids and the dessert off to D&D with instructions to keep the bowl of sauce upright in the bag so it wouldn’t spill. A few hours later 7 of the 9 shortcakes came back, along with a plastic bag dripping with sticky strawberry juice. It appeared only the untreated strawberries and two shortcakes were eaten. So much for lovingly homemade desserts for this crowd.
The next day I offered the shortcakes and sauce to an older couple that lives nearby, one of whom recently had surgery. They accepted immediately and I drove over after supper. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the patient looked to be totally recovered, although I assume still not at full strength. They asked me in and we promptly consumed three of the remaining shortcakes and most of the sauce. I left the remains at their house, satisfied my baking had been put to good use. On the way home, I thought more neighborliness should also be part of my redesigned life.

Introduction—Redesigning My Life

For more than 10 years I’ve had two jobs dealing with money. I’ve worked steadily in the computer field—mostly programming—in my day job, and investing in the stock market in my side job. Add in unpaid jobs like parenting (since 1990) and general household finances, and I’ve gotten run down over the last few years. I don’t think these events are directly related, but as the stock market became more lucrative I started losing interest in computer programming. For the last couple of years, when people ask “What do you do?”, I’ve usually said my career is investing and my job is programming computers.

I’ve spent countless hours pondering what career to take up that would be more interesting and fulfilling than computers. For various reasons, no career has been so inspiring that I’m eager to jump into it like I jumped into programming over 20 years ago. Over the past several months I’ve had several inspiring epiphanies and done a little inspiring reading and came to the conclusion that I don’t need a new career per se, I need a new life, or more accurately a redesigned life. I decided to leave the job that’s sucking up too much time and energy and embrace the job I really care about: investing. Beyond that I want to figure out other ways of making money, and beyond that I want more than a job change: I want a richer life. I suppose Maslow would call it self-actualization. Add it all up, and I call it redesigning my life.

Getting back in writing form is one aspect of redesigning my life, which is the motive for this blog. The act of writing forces some order and clarity on my chaotic thoughts, and maybe I can help someone move along toward their own epiphanies. I hope you’ll drop in to see how my project is going.