Money,Housing and Success.

I was thinking yesterday about what I defined as success. Success for me, when I was younger was knowing that I could walk into a store and purchase something without worrying that I was going to go without food or shelter. Success was a happy family. Success to me at the time was not so much keeping up with the Joneses (we didn't even have any Joneses in my circle) it was really more about being happy, healthy and having a few nice things. I always wanted to keep my own sense of style and a certain bit of quirkiness as well. Of course there were times in my life that I wanted to have the "big house". I used to go to the Street of Dreams in Oregon and think those houses were what I wanted, but then again those houses were a huge 3000 square feet. The average "Street of Dreams" home now is something like 5000 square feet with no yard. (Or this house, while it is beautiful in many ways, and professionally decorated it is 6500 square feet) I say no thank you. Success was going to be a moderate house, a career I liked the annual two week vacation and the ability to pay for items (no not a Louis Vuitton, but maybe a $100 necklace) without stress. I never dreamed of yachts or private jets. I never dreamed of luxury cars. Maybe I was raised thinking that the trappings of wealth were really just that, trappings.







Now at the age of 44 I think my original dreams have come pretty true. I don't dream of big huge marble bathrooms. I would like a bathtub I could soak in however. I don't dream of a luxury car. We have lived for over 11 years without owning a car. Mass transport and taxis have been enough for us. We consider purchasing a small car as the kids are getting busy at school and our taxi fairs have increased. A nice small Honda would do me just fine.



I don't dream of a 5000 square foot home, we own our 1100 square foot home back in the States and it has been rented to the same tenant for 11 years. While it will be smaller than what we want should we move home, I can't imagine ever living with more than 2200 square feet. Our current space is 1900 square feet and is almost perfect but the lack of storage is a bit off putting.



I certainly don't dream of 40 foot ceilings. Pretty, but how do you dust the brickabrack on the top shelf? If you are sitting in the chair next to it, do you even notice. What about the heating bill of that home? (I do like the view however out those windows... just keeping it real!)




I no longer dream of 2 week vacations. I work from home and travel extensively for work. When the kids are able, they come with us. Budget travel in Asia allows us to fly for cheap and using points I accumulate through work we stay in excellent hotels at pennies on the dollar. When we don't stay at 5 Star Hotels using points, we search the internet and find perfectly acceptable hotels for US$40-50 per night. As a result my children have traveled to Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. While they don't get to hang out at the Oregon Coast as much as I did as a child, i think they are doing just fine in the tropics.




I don't dream of showing my wealth by having the biggest or the best. I do have an excellent job. One that pays better than most. It allows Jeff to have the flexibility to find his dream job while we are still paying for our kids to attend a world class private school. We are able to pay for holidays if we want and we are able to pay for health care for those we love. We cut corners where we can to save for the future, we don't have big TVs or lots of gadgets. We don't spend on the latest fashion...in fact I just went shopping for clothes for myself for the first time in over 8 years. Sometimes it is hard to not see beautiful houses like this and say, wow, I wish.... Sometimes it is hard looking at ex-pats (a whole post in itself) and think wow I wish I could have that car, or that dress or that house, or that XYorZ. But, after a moment I think back again about what I really wanted as a child. My definition of success.



In those moments when I start thinking I need to keep up with the Joneses, the Smiths or the Chens... I think back. What is it that I really want.



What do I have:
A happy family. Check
A job that pays for my lifestyle, gives me satisfaction and allows me to travel. Check
A husband that I love and that loves me. Check.
Travel all over the world to learn and see new things. Check.
Live overseas and expose my family to second cultures. Check
Have a group/a circle of amazing friends. Check
A roof over my head. Check
Good food on the table. Check

What I still want:
A backyard with a garden..OK Condo living kind of makes that hard...But I really do like our place.
A sense of financial security. Working on that
Wealth in Spirit- Working on that....

So, have I met my definition of success. Pretty damn close if I do say so myself.

All images from http://shelburnehomes.blogspot.com/

Just a bit of prettiness today

A small corner of my home that I love. I need to get more corners that make me happy. There are so many that are left "unfilled". And, as I have just purged way too many magazines and things sitting around my house I don't need to necessarily fill them with "things", but I want to clean them- set them in order and make them beautiful.



Mao memorabilia finds from throughout Asia.







I would love to fill my home with more corners like this



















And have dinner parties using candles and seashells like this (Images are both from my new "blog crush" 52Flea.

Simple quiet corners of my house. That is what I am trying to establish. A place to relax, a place to be.

Too Much/Too Many? CDs and Music

My beloved and I have quite a CD collection, one that rivals our DVD collection. While I am overall pretty happy with the way our DVD "database works" I have still not found a similar free or moderately priced music organizer to create a database of my albums. I started to organize, pulled all of the CDs out of the jewel boxes, put them in alphabetical order and then, the project died out. I just wasn't happy with my options.

I have always wanted to go ahead and rip my music and put it on iTunes to have the music digitally available so I started to rip a few CDs on my husbands computer. Now, by way of disclaimer, while I think we have quite a music collection, I understand that others have many many more, so what may end up working for me, may not work for others. Just so you know where I am at, so far I have over 3700 songs on my 'work' computer and on Jeff's I have only put a few...2000 or so heehee... That is mostly just songs, not albums. Many of these MP3s were gifts from friends, rips of music we all knew and loved. Some downloaded-most recently with a little gifty card I bought myself while home in the US.

As a side note, one of the pains of living in Singapore is that we are not
allowed to open an iTunes account using a Singapore credit card or
Singapore address, so i have to do it with my US debit card and my parents in
law's address.

But, I digress, as I am wont to do. Back to the tally, my rough count of CD's has us at well over 300 disks. So, how to organize them? I wonder if I was over thinking it? Could I simply use what I already had? Well, I started by again alphabetizing them (had to take a second stab at this due to additions over the holidays) just like I did with the DVD's. Anyway, back to the original point of this post. I need to get back on this project. So as I started to burn the CDs I noticed that the computer, handy little tool that it is, started to sort the albums for me.

I started to burn the CDs in MP3 for compatibility reasons, although I do think Apple will end up being the only music player out there in the end, starting with the MP3 allows me to use iTunes, or other MP3 players. Ripping with iTunes limits me to the Apple format. As I ripped them using Windows Media, the computer started to put them into Artist/Band folders with each album separately listed. The grace notes appear to be transferred as well so art work will show up when you put it onto the player. iTunes shows me the album, the artist, the track listing and the artwork. I can sort by genre and by date. What I can't do is read the liner notes... but that is a story for another time.

The real reason for this post? Well, it goes not only to organization and to clutter, but to the crux of voluntary simplicity for me. Last weekend we were getting haircuts with the kids and Jeff found a great CD sale. He came up with a US$ 5.00 copy of Forty Licks by the Stones. I told him we already owned it. I know this because I bought it and I organized it. He didn't believe me, but when we got home, I got into the alphabetical stack and found our copy. We now will be gifting our second copy to someone.

As the great band has said " You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need.

I just hope once I get a list done there are less of these duplicate purchases. What do you all do to organize your music collections?

Family-Parenting

When I first found myself pregnant with Declan, I knew what kind of parent I wanted to be. I still want to be that kind of parent. I don't get there all the time, I try, but I have some of my own issues that keep butting into my goal to be kind and gentle. I tend to be grumpy, short, quick to anger and patience, well it may be a virtue, but one I really struggle with. I look at all of the blogs were it seems that every one is a perfect parent, the kids are creative and do all sorts of artsy things. The kids eat 100% organic foods and would never touch a packet of Kraft mac and cheese, even if offered. Coke and cookies are unheard of in the home, it is organic arrowroot crackers and homemade lemon water. And the kids are perfect.

But, they aren't. The mothers aren't. While the blogs are lovely, they don't always reflect real life (which is one reason I love the Pioneer Woman, her kids seem to be pretty real life to me as the wallow in muck and mud, just look at her fridge in this post and you will see what I mean). I have friends who throw down terms like active parenting and organic lifestyles. They ban all processed food from their homes, but I know as soon as those kids hit the neighbors the first thing into the mouth is an oreo or a glass of rootbeer. I know these mom's get upset and angry, I have even seen some of them lose their temper. I guess when it happens I have to sit back and smile, a bit of schadenfreude I know, but I already told you I have issues! But the point here is that I know that as much as I do have work to become a better parent, I need to temper myself and my emotions, I have done Okay so far.

My basic philosophy is first and foremost to raise gentle and kind kids. Kids that appreciate the things that they have to share with others, to take note of what they see, to eat well and healthful. To be thankful for the world and the opportunities they have been given. To understand that by the grace of God, or the luck of the karmic draw, they have been born into an upper middle class family that is educated and has opportunities as a result of that status. Elitist, no, just realistic. I know that the kids have a better chance statistically of being educated and upper middle class because we are.

So, week before last in a situation of a very bad, horrible no good day, I flew to KL for a business meeting that unbeknownst to me was cancelled (or I wasn't registered) what ever. I was tired, cranky, suffering from Jet Lag. I called home to bitch at the situation with Jeff and talk to the kids to just get some touchstone back home. I was told by Delcan, that he had purchased me a gift while on a school field trip. He bought his sister one too. Not because he was told to, but because he is a kind, gentle and giving boy, minus those times he is on Wii.

I came home to this boy and this gift. Guess while my house may be a mess, I travel too much and I lose my temper way too fast, I must have done something right. All parents question the ability to parent. we all question if we are doing it right, if you have kids that love you, you are doing something right too!

Beauty- In the home

Four posts-in a week. Wow... almost an all time record.

So, a few thoughts about making my home beautiful (Wednesday I am now calling Beauty Day)- on a budget (or being frugal if you prefer) and being green. I am currently working on a project for my daughter's grade 1 contribution to the Singapore American School County Fair (an annual fundraiser for the school). I was looking through one of my favorite magazines Somerset Life- Oh yeah, not so frugal the purchase of these magazines, but I digress I happened across some of Mindy Carpenter's art work. Mindy created some amazing collages using papers and ephemera she has collected and stored in her studio. I thought what a great idea for getting some of the kids' school stuff off the kitchen table and somewhere we can appreciate it. Along came the idea of creating a canvas for the whole class. The canvas will be 36X40 inches and will contain bits and bobs of the kids work.

By way of a sample and to hang on my kids' wall next week, here is the first collage I did using some of the school work they have done this year. This was a fun, fast project and one that I will be doing more of (maybe with some of the collected ephemera from my trips around the world!)