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Ruminations on community

[blog post to be entered here will be some thoughts about how corporations built loyalty among their employees, and how that interacts with community groups that build loyalty]

A budget is a moral document

When I worked at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta, they advertised their annual budgeting process with posters that said "A budget is a moral document" and had the time and date of the next budget meeting. I started budgeting when I was 18 and heading off to college. When I started looking at full-time jobs for after graduation, I called my mom one night and asked her to go through her budget with me line by line. We did, and I made estimates of how much money I should put where. I included everything -- haircuts, dentist, AAA membership, spending money, personal growth (like buying books). Everything. I also included donations that I make regularly, birthday presents, and christmas presents. I know what amount and percentage I pay in income tax, how much is taken out for my retirement account, and what I pay in health insurance for my partner that his mother reimburses for me.

My budget is something of a moral document -- it always has things like donations on it -- but if it's supposed to be a reflection of my morals, I'm not comfortable with the percentage that I spend on myself. When I got promoted two years ago and got a 60% raise, I thought I'd be able to put all of the extra money towards student loans. Then I decided I needed to live without a roommate for a while, so I spent a lot of money for a little while. Every time I got more money, I spent it -- I flew my mom to visit once, I travelled more than I could legitimately afford. I live in a much more affordable area now, paying less than half the rent I was paying a year ago. I commute more, but not that much more. Where did the other 60% go? What is my budget saying about me and how I live my life, if spare cash goes towards not having to cook at home rather than on my own financial stability or on donations or gifts or even travel to visit people? It's short-sighted.

This is what it's like to be in love

Every few days or weeks, I look at my relationship with E and think "I've never been at this point in a relationship." I've been in relationships for the same amount of time, but never with this level of togetherness, of individual growth, and of contentment and satisfaction. It isn't rare for me to start giggling out of nowhere because I'm so lucky to be with him. The best part is he feels exactly the same way.

He's been working on his blog recently, so I mentioned that he should link it to my blog. He knew I had created a blogger account way back when, but he didn't know that it had a theme and I actually used it. His face lit up, he started giggling, and he was so excited that we are, in fact, the same kind of nerd.

Holidays and family

I just returned from a weekend with my family in Florida. My immediate family moved to central Fla when I was 10, and my grandmother moved down about five years ago. My dad is in NC, and everyone else is in NJ. My mom's heart breaks every time she thinks of not spending her golden years with her sister and brother. Her concept of family is that chosen family is very very close, but the given and chosen families she has are all so far away. She misses everyone all the time. She and I and my brother went to a farmers market on Saturday morning, which was a very rare nice outing for the three of us. She was in heaven. My family, though, is mostly made up of people I'm not related to. I have a special bond with my cousins, that even though we didn't really grow up together, we love and respect each other a lot and we spend time together when we can. This weekend, our neighbors from across the street, their kids, our family friends from mom's work, and our family friends from Germany (former foreign exchange student who's now 40) all came for dinner. There were 17 adults and four babies, the oldest being my three-year-old nephew. Babies got passed from one person to another, whoever had a free arm taking one, passing them on as they got tired or needed food/water/potty. At one point, my mom was holding almost-one-year-old Suhana and my nephew accidentally ran smack into a sliding glass door that he hadn't realized was closed. My leaned down to get Austin, I scooped Suhana out of her arms, Suhana's mom went to feed her other kid who was screaming, and 20 minutes later everything was calm and babies were in different arms. That's my family. Some of them are people I was given, but most are people we chose and who chose us.

E was not with me, which felt less abnormal than I had expected. We didn't actually talk much, either, because I was so busy. Only once did I call for an escape from something offensive, which I think is an all-time low. Last week, E and I filled out our household census, which is probably the most official "yes, we're together" thing we've done yet. He's on my health insurance at work, but we've each had other partners with whom we did that. This was the first time we were counted as a unit for any legal reason. The thing is, we aren't being counted as who we are. I get that the census doesn't account for sexual orientation, and that's whatever. They figure out same-sex partners by the combination of people listed that they are the same sex and listing their relationship to each other as "unmarried partner." We aren't a same-sex couple, but we are unmarried partners who do not have the option to marry. If we wanted to be counted as "couple who cannot legally marry," he would have to list himself as female, which did not feel ok. I haven't seen mention of this issue anywhere in LGBT or queer writeups about the census.

In two weeks, I will be doing Easter dinner for myself. I'm looking forward to cooking a big meal, but I don't know quite how to do it. The fact that it's Easter will take the wind out of E's sails, but it's important to me, so I'm doing it and he's ok with that. More planning to come, I'm sure.

There are some things I want to say about my relationship to my body and my family's relationship to my body, but they aren't ready yet. I will be back when the elves get back in shape.

New Years Revolution

I spent most of January thinking about my New Years resolutions, and I've got my work cut out for me. I'm already working on some things with emotional stability, jealousy (as in, have less), and independence, but those are my constant life's work. Ditto with trying not to plan the future so much that I ignore the present. (If that were a marketable skill, I would have my pick of the job market.) Here are the things that are going to be my real things this year:

-Reduce/eliminate overdraft fees. This is embarrassing as hell, but in 2008 I lost about $3,000 to overdraft fees. Last year was less, but was still over $1,000. Some of this is bad bank practice, but if that was the only problem, I'd be under $100. I'm good at budgeting, but I get avoidant when I think my balance might be getting low. Time to keep to my budget instead of just having one, no matter how pretty the budget is.
-Keep up with birthday and special occasion cards. I have a slew of cards that I've gotten from work over the last few years, and it's time that I start keeping up with my cousins and good friends. Got the first two done -- my friend Brooke and my cousin Cheryl both had birthdays in January. I asked for addresses when I was doing holiday cards, and I've been putting birthdays in my calendar.
-Make more bread. I learned to make bread about a year ago, but I want to be able to do it regularly and with variation. I don't have a bread machine, but maybe I'll ask for one for my birthday. Ditto a standing mixer.
-Perfect a vegetarian version of Italian wedding soup. Chickpeas, fake meatballs, vegetable stock, fake-beef stock, fake-chicken stock, whatever. I got close a few years ago, but I really really want to figure it out. And when I do, I'll make it for the holidays this year!

sweet and sour sauce

I'm craving sweet and sour sauce, and this isn't a rare occurrence. I found several recipes that I plan to smoosh together. After much trial and addition (didn't scrap it at all), here's what I came up with:

2 tbs green onion (the white part), chopped
1/4 c white vinegar
3/4 of a green bell pepper, chopped
2 tbs tomato paste
1/2 c water
1 tbs garlic-ginger paste
3 tbs brown sugar (packed)
1 tsp granulated
1/2 c soy sauce
2 tbs lemon juice

This went far enough to cover chicken and faux abelone-seitan and rice for five people. It took a while of adding things for it to come out good and strong, so it ended up with a slightly smoky flavor. Ideally, I'd rather not overcook it, and I would use pineapple juice instead of lemon.

For the chicken and seitan, I chopped them into bite-size pieces and dipped them in beaten egg and then in flour, then fried them in just enough oil to cover the bottom of the cast-iron pan.