September is that month I tend to gloss over. Here in Arizona, we are months into sweltering summer temperatures and I honestly have my sh*t full of it by the time September rolls around. It gets a ‘meh’ from me and I eagerly look forward to October, like some kids look forward to Christmas and presents. October is overwhelmingly a reset button for me. More than January. Years ago though, I became aware of September being Suicide Prevention Month and as a result, I feel I owe it a bit more as someone who has hit rock bottom and navigated their way out of feeling like there wasn’t something left to live for. And it’s not that I don’t like September. I just don’t like the September we get in Arizona. The high today was 115 today, and maybe last weekend or the one prior we had a sneak peek at fall with a high of 88. That was lovely.
With summer temperatures coming to an end eventually, I want to close out Suicide Prevention Month with a bunch of gratitude. This month our nation was again rocked with needless gun violence and my heart still stings for those families that lost loved ones in the September 4th school shooting in Georgia. There is nothing I or others can say to provide full justice for the victims, but I feel our nation is making steps in the right direction by starting to charge parents whose negligence are contributing factors to the events that unfolded. We saw it first with Jennifer and James Crumbley earlier this year and we see it with charges being brought up for Colin Gray, the father of Colt Gray, the student who shot his classmates and teachers earlier this month. The next steps outside the courtroom our nation will take though remain to be determined.
Knowing that so much is in the air, I want to cautiously say I don’t want people in the Republican or Democratic camp to rush judgement on this idea that so much of gun violence is rooted in mental health problems. What we’re seeing are anger management issues more than anything. Ticked off teenagers not getting what they want in life and resorting to violence as their “solution.” Again, I say this cautiously because there is a stigma about mental health and to hit gun violence with a wide brush as being caused by mentally ill persons further marginalizing those with mental health conditions. I have been open for a bit about dealing with PTSD for years and NOT ONCE when my life was feeling like it was falling apart did I ever considering harming someone else with a firearm because I couldn’t cope with life. Even when I contemplated self-harm, my goal wasn’t to find access to a firearm. The plan I had was still pretty dark, but utilizing different methods, and in spite of my self-hatred, there have been plenty of years I’ve safely used and maintained firearms. I have a deep respect for firearms, because I served in the Marine Corps and it is not a love for the M-16 that I was allowed to possess that kept me from abusing it. It was that the Marine Corps trusted me to possess it, use it safely, and return it to the armory when I was done with it. I still think (and I don’t want to scare anyone with this statement) on my darkest day if I had a firearm in the hotel room where I contemplated suicide, my mind would have still left it alone and only considered the other method.
I now utilize my healthcare through the VA, and I can almost bet I will forever have conversations with my care team at least once a year about whether I have access to firearms. They know my history of contemplating suicide in 2005, and I’ve talked to them about the positive coping mechanisms I work to utilize to reduce stress in my life. When they ask me questions, I know it’s from their responsibility to keep veterans and others in the community safe. They have to ask if our veterans have suicidal ideation or homicidal ideation. Those uncomfortable questions they have to ask in the nature of their duties matter, and if the parents in these school shootings had taken the circumstances more seriously preceding their children bringing weapons to school and assaulting their peers and done something similar, on their own or with the appropriate care teams, we might not have the additional gun deaths we do now. These human losses were something I brought up with my care team this month when I had a regular checkup. These attacks made me more on edge. It hurts me to know that more and more children are seeing their classrooms become warlike environments. Coming back from Iraq and seeing my fellow Americans have to fear going to school, shopping for groceries, driving down the interstate, this is not what America should be. And it can get better when we find gun access solutions that all political parties can get behind to reduce the frequency and intensity of gun violence. I know it’s unrealistic to say it will completely go away. Our communities started to change with the Columbine shooting April 20th, 1999 and it’s only gotten worse. What we’re currently doing isn’t working, so we must assess more policies and practices in place that pre-dated that particular tragedy and see if that helps, even though it must still be supplemented by a lot of new technology we find is working and training among community partners must continue. Preparedness is not to be discarded.
I dumped a lot more on here than originally intended. My heart has been full attending to my own family and struggling with these additional deaths. I love being a parent and to know others lost their babies is not something I can ignore. The extra days I’ve gotten with my own child in the aftermath of the September attack is not lost on me. We’ve had more time to do YouTube pilates workouts during the week. We went out to a fancy restaurant earlier this month as a family. Today, her and a girlfriend enjoyed a local trampoline park and I got to watch our fourteen year old and her friend be kids. I took photos of these young girls catching up for the first time in months. (They go to school online.) These girls are the same age as the assailant and, more importantly, the two students who died. But I did not just watch these girls have fun. I witnessed a community surrounding a little boy named Lincoln celebrate his ninth birthday. A handful of parents pulled up chairs adjacent to the trampolines to keep a close eye on younger kids, likely 3 or 4 years of age. The cashier and all the coworkers I saw were clearly teenagers. We live in a world where we should see our kids grow up and not die in their classrooms.
So to keep a long story from getting into too much of a longer story, decompressing has been a big part of the month for me. I’ve been working on appreciating my favorite month is around the corner. I hoard and share with friends a number of fun ghost images I find online, keeping me from needlessly purchasing autumnal decor and Halloween pumpkins. I opt to borrow library books, but I make exceptions for books I know I want in my personal collection. Kelly Bishop’s memoir is one such treat, because Gilmore Girls is my all-time favorite show. (Sookie Saint James is my favorite character from the series, and I think Melissa McCarthy was the perfect actress for the role.) Cooking also plays a big role in my life, which is why I relate to Sookie so much. It kept me busy when I was on terminal leave in 2005 and I see that it has helped in managing my PTSD. I am not the best at always staying present when stress creeps in, but cooking forces me to slow down and pay attention. When I don’t, I screw up something in the recipe (usually, it’s adding an ingredient in late or not at all). The yeasted rice and coconut recipe I shared below is from In Bibi’s Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers from the Eight African Countries That Touch the Indian Ocean by Hawa Hassan with Julie Thursten. It’s a recipe that requires planning ahead, so I am constrained to make it during the weekend when I have more time to soak the rice. If all goes well, I can make it tomorrow. If I screw it up, it’s next weekend’s project. To close things out for the night, I am enjoying Trader Joe’s Ginger Drink warmed up. It’s still hot AF (103 currently outside), but I’ve been indoors for a bit and the A/C is making me chilly. Since you took the time to stick with me for this long-winded entry, I want to say thank you. I wish you and yours a safe and happy weekend and a good month ahead. See you back here in October.
I hit a ten-year milestone this month. Ten years of writing. Unpaid, but writing somewhat consistently nonetheless. (I try to keep up with this blog about once a month. I write in other spaces on a daily and weekly basis.)
I am not the same person I was then, much like I wasn’t the same person at the end of my enlistment with the Marine Corps compared to when I started.
Growth happens. If we allow it to occur. And, surprisingly, not everyone wants to grow professionally, personally, for practical reasons. Staying where you are is comforting. You know the routine. Knowing what’s around the corner because you’ve looped it several times before brings with it the perception of security. I say perception because if nothing else, the years have taught me nothing is guaranteed.
My blog was built on the idea of talking about other women’s service. Not mine. I’m quite the introvert naturally, and I thought just wanting other women to open up about their experiences and coming across them in spaces I already frequented would build the trajectory of this blog. Being mostly unwilling to get out of my comfort zone could have torpedoed this blog. My discomfort in reaching out to strangers did factor into why the blog never expanded into a landing space for other people’s stories (at least not from their perspective). I tested out the waters then for sharing my own experiences, and I’m glad I did.
It was a lesson that sometimes failing in one regard is the best thing that can happen to us.
My blog became a full circle unpacking of my Marine Corps experiences. I’ve edited it very little. There are some current events that have encouraged me to prioritize personal safety, so my full name is no longer reflected on here. Taking a page from a number of male authors who’ve talked about their own military service, it is ok to limit the scope of the conversation and one’s personal life. Some details matter, and some are background noise. We all have characters that pass through our lives that don’t need a continual mention. Then there are people whose legacy deserves to live on. We don’t realize their impact maybe in the first or second interaction we have with them, but their role in our lives completely changes who we become. I became a Marine, because I wanted to serve in a friend’s place after his death. I had no deep desire to serve other than to pay respects to his memory. With no real planning, I joined and belonged to a subpopulation of the United States for four years. Those four years continue to influence my life greatly. They are not everything that I am though.
We must be bold as veterans though to accept we are more than the uniform and the amount of time we committed to our respective service branch(es). Some veterans will stay in that loop, feeling that their military service is the best thing they’ve ever done, the best moments they’ll ever live. I feel a little sad that they don’t see their full potential. We may have had some great days, unforgettable life changing moments, but life moves forward, not backwards. If we stare at the rear view too long, we romanticize the past. We discount the hardships. We ignore the inconsistencies that are prevalent among military mannerisms and expectations. We forget that our military is no less perfect than our nation, and there’s been a lot of racial and sexist bias along the way. Seeing the past as our glory days means we are not looking critically about what happened to us and what happened to those around us.
Ten years ago, I decided to skirt around the more negative aspects of my service. I did not talk for many years about how I contemplated suicide after my first tour in Iraq. I did not want to share that part of my story and own up to how I did not take advantage of resources that could have been available to me during my service had I asked for them. I also was scared others would, because they often do, trauma compare and say that my service wasn’t as bad as someone else’s and that I was weak, unfit for military service. I didn’t want my family to know, for fear they would look inward and see that they failed me. I wasn’t showing up for myself back in 2005 and then again in 2014 when I started this blog project. I am no longer worried about sharing this intimate detail. I know being open and honest can help someone else decide to not commit suicide. Even if it’s only one person, that’s enough of an impact. Showing someone they can move forward from such negative thoughts and achieve things they never thought possible is its own reward.
I was only 21 years old when I let undiagnosed PTSD take me down a rabbit hole no one should. I wasn’t aware how much our brains are still developing in our 20’s and what intrusive thoughts were. I felt friendless, family-less, without meaningful connections anymore in the workspace, and, on top of it all, being temporarily broke added another layer of despair to my situation. The relationship I ended in 2005 didn’t alleviate my identity crisis. Instead of feeling relieved, I listened to sad songs on repeat and kept myself in a victim mentality. (Those songs are inspiring to me now, because I actually understand how the lyrics are stories of recovery and pulling oneself out of the bottom.) I was never a victim though. Life happens to all of us, and it’s not always pretty.
It was just my turn to go through some bad things. I didn’t have to make them worse.
Improving the quality of my life was not an overnight success. I woke up the day after deciding not to commit suicide still feeling pretty letdown by where things stood. My first six months of recovery were rough, and if I had trusted in the leadership I had, they would have been easier. Knowing that I was uncertain about staying in the Marine Corps kept me from seeking the professional help I should have utilized. I kept my secret although it still manifested on the outside. I was difficult at work. I lost trust in many relationships. My drinking was getting out of control. But I still persisted a little bit each day to live a better life.
And that’s part of why I want to expressly state we are more than our service experiences, good or bad. I live with PTSD, but I don’t let it define me. For all the challenges it’s brought me over the years–much of it discussed in this blog–it’s also allowed me to better empathize with victims of war. The traditional kind, not the warriors. People living their everyday life that see their access to a safe community disrupted, or they’ve grown up during a war and never known anything different. When they finally get to be part of a safe community, it can feel like a frail gift. An outsider who comes to the United States may see their challenges stack up when there is anti-immigrant sentiment, support structures are broken (i.e. a lack of interpreters, non-English forms), and the boundaries between assimilation processes and expressions of individuality are blurry, giving rise to miscommunication and perhaps increasing their safety risk. Our nation has a long history of doing some level of harm to allow a select group of individuals to get ahead, and that bad habit still persists today.
My interest in social justice evolved from one originally, narrowly, focused on the Post-9/11 veteran community. This subpopulation was the one I studied when I pursued a Master of Art in Social and Cultural Pedagogy. I branched out *a little* when I later pursued a Master of Public Administration, which allowed me to further study the laws that impact veteran benefits. I still love looking at how our nation can better serve our veterans, part of why I was willing last month to discuss why I refuse to vote for Donald Trump and why he’s the reason I left the Republican party. But I cannot just care about our nation’s veterans. They are one of the many communities that are deserving of a better life here in the United States. As much as this country has held a special regard for our service members and veterans, even imperfectly, I know we can hold space for many others who are just as deserving. Dr. Emily Smith talks at great lengths in her book, The Science of the Good Samaritan, about trickle-up economics and the benefits it holds for us as a country.
My heart and vote are going towards the side that’s looking to do more for the most vulnerable among us. I’ve had my hardships. I didn’t get through those all on my own. A small amount of unemployment compensation in 2007 helped ease my rocky transition out of the Marine Corps. My VA education benefits (used between 2008 and 2017) alleviated most of my higher education costs. Two bouts of unplanned unemployment between 2012 and 2013 were less devastating when my family qualified for SNAP (food stamps). Those periods of unemployment I went without health insurance, because who can afford $1,000 plus a month for COBRA health insurance, made me fear any symptoms that could expand beyond the common cold. (I couldn’t even fathom if I had gone through all that during the pandemic, but others did.) Of all the challenges I’ve faced, being without health care was the worst. Even in the past few years, my health care needs have increased; I switched from using private health care to using my VA health care benefits to ensure I could access care when I needed it. Not when I knew I could afford it. I agree with Dr. Smith that we need to work towards increasing medical care access to the most vulnerable for better outcomes for them, their families, and our society.
I’ve benefitted when life looked really grim, and it’s only right I continue to support helping those in need, in the ways I can. By the way, there is no one right way to help. We all have a different amount of resources, including time, that we can devote to serving others. I donate to causes I believe in throughout the year, but that choice may not be accessible to others, part of why I wanted to share what I read. I’ve grown to love non-fiction works more over the years and some of the most important lessons covered in a college classroom (social inequality, financial planning, changing social norms within and across cultures, etc.) can be found in books at a local public library. Not only can we encourage the use of public libraries to reduce the costs of reading materials for families in need, but by supporting our public libraries, we increase the amount of circulation each book has. (I also donate unwanted books from my personal library to the public library to help reduce printed waste and allow my books to enjoy a second life.) To accompany this blog, I have a public Instagram profile, @service_was_a_place_to_start, where I am sharing different books that are broadening my understanding of the world, my upbringing, and many of the challenges for particular communities.
This new offshoot project is something the 2014 me would have been a little too nervous to share, because these books are beautifully in your face: foreign words painting pictures of different lifestyles; FACTS, yes facts, that cannot be ignored; and anecdotes that remind you childhood is something we continue to relive as we grow up. These books aren’t for egoists or narcissists. You have to trust, as a reader, that the world is made up of many pages with stories that differ from your own. There is space for more stories to be added. Learning about world challenges doesn’t mean you are a bad person for enjoying your privilege(s). Instead, it’s a moment to recognize you have privileges. We shouldn’t have a scarcity mindset that helping someone obtain access to a better life means that ours will be downgraded in the process. I want to reiterate these things in the books I select to share.
I welcome you all to join me in discussing some of your favorite books. If you join me on this journey in social media, all I ask if that you are kind with your words to me and to others in our community. I am not here to tolerate hate-filled speech or verbal abuse of any kind.
This election season has been the worst I’ve ever recalled. As fraught as I thought the battle was between Trump’s incumbent attempt for a second term and Biden running up against him, this one has me questioning why so many Americans gloss over Trump’s self-centered nature, history of and ongoing legal issues, and poor communication skills riddled with irate, devoid of facts tangents. While I don’t always expect a candidate to communicate to the best of their abilities (we’re all human), his attitude is something I find continues to bring out the worst in people–and some people love it. Gross. He doesn’t really ever have something nice to say about anyone. He just makes enough of a casual comment to build a base of people loyal to him or people swing his way when their other goals don’t get them what they want. The lack of backbone in some of the higher level Republicans–Ron Desantis being one of them–is a key point that disgusts me on where the Republican party is at today. Even Trump’s selected running mate, JD Vance, didn’t like him and swung his opinion to open up a job opportunity for himself.
Why Let A Misogynist and a Bigot Decide What’s Right for Women, Immigrants, and People of Color
I am not the first to point out Trump loves himself. And really let’s be honest, he only loves himself. I won’t let his slew of children through three marriages convince me that he’s a good man. You can be a parent and a partner and still be a crappy human being. Those personal roles in society can be separate from and/or intertwined identities with one’s public life. I think he loves the power differential he brought into his relationships and likely conducts himself that way with his children, too. It’s one thing though to act that way within your own familial group; it’s another when you try to lord over a nation. He did that before, and I don’t want to see him do that again.
Just a few of the ways he’s professed and acted upon his disdain of women:
These are not things to take lightly. While I have not been personally attacked by him like the women mentioned in these situation, I have encountered men in my life that treated me just as poorly. It is the responsible thing to protect women (and men) from those that harm them physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially. In my case, one ex tried to let his friends see me in a state of undress, without my consent. The pain from that still shows up in my life and on one level, I am lucky none of those present attempted to rape me, but not all women (men, or children) find themselves in a lesser state of harm. I didn’t report it in the Marine Corps because I had leadership that I felt didn’t care about me. In a different situation, I found the leadership looks above and above for my wellbeing (in ways that weren’t shared with me) after a former partner and fellow Marine threatened to harm me. Why should we allow this misogynist make decisions that impact the welfare of slightly more than half the population? Women are estimated to be 50.5% of the United States population based on US Census Bureau 2023 estimates and the paid and unpaid labor we do to support ourselves, perhaps children and partners, directly impacts the wellbeing of the economy.
Women, as a segment of the United States population, are only one of the groups he discriminates against. We dealt with a Muslim ban in 2017 and he shows no remorse for his decision, still reflecting a desire to keep out others he finds unworthy to be in the United States because they do not share his values. Black Americans haven’t been safer under the former president or respected as he has been quoted numerous times disparaging them along with members of the LGTBQ+ community and GLAAD outlines his poor behavior over the decades. All I see is a number of people flock to him because they hate Democrats, not because he brings anything of value to the table. All that he seems to do is stir up trouble. To this day, he continues to think the presidential election was stolen from him and he doesn’t find himself at fault for the Jan. 6th, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Why Let A Felon Run a Country When They Can’t Occupy Lesser Authoritative Roles in Society
Switching to another important topic. His behavior over the years hasn’t been limited to hurt feelings. He has committed harm to individuals and communities, also putting our country at risk. He feels entitled to women’s bodies as his playthings, uses his platform to endanger others, and is lazy in how he attending to his records access in his previous role and thereafter. For his actions, he was sued by E. Jean Carroll and found guilty of defamation and sexual abuse, ultimately resulting in a $5 million judgment. The fact his classified documents case was recently dismissed doesn’t undo the fact he should not have possessed the records and we’ll see what the appeal process looks like on that issue. I protected secret classified information on my first tour in Iraq, so it’s a huge slap in the face to the work we do as service members (and to our civilian counterparts that do much the same) that he took and retained the documents, like it was an inconsequential action. And lest we forget about those 34 felonies he’s sitting on at this point in time. NPR lists them nicely, if you’d like to review them for the first time or for recall purposes. And he wants to run the country again?
We keep felons out of a slew of other jobs and industries (for good reason), but he wants to be our President, 34 felonies to his name. To protect vulnerable and potentially vulnerable persons, we put a lot of restrictions in place on who can become a teacher, work in the medical community, and operate in our banking industries. We won’t allow someone to go into the FBI with a felony conviction, but as a presidential prospect, he wants to come to the table with not one but 34 felonies. 34. Can I say that enough?! A dishonorable discharge veteran, by comparison, who has committed offenses like murder, espionage, fraud, desertion, and sexual assault does not have the same clout as the former president as they move forward with their lives: they will lose access to VA benefits, aren’t qualified for federal service, cannot own firearms, and will often run into challenges accessing other government programs and benefits. Because I am attempting to restrain the length of today’s blog, here’s BBC’s July 15th, 2024 article on his four criminal cases for further study.
Why Let Someone Become the Commander-in-Chief Again when He Disrespects Military Service
As I previously mentioned, our society severely restricts benefit access to dishonorable discharge veterans. We (our society) do a lot to remove the means for them to achieve significant financial achievement and security. Gone is the avenue to have a VA-backed home loan. Did you want to use VA education benefits? Sorry, cannot have that either. You could have sustained serious illness or injury, but our government is not entitling you to VA disability compensation either. Go find another means to navigate through your suffering. At most, you might still be eligible for VA healthcare. (Note: One can apply for a character of discharge upgrade, but it’s not guaranteed it will be approved.) These things are not likely ever on Trump’s mind. His behavior indicates only a strong interest about his own welfare and opportunities.
Like his verbal assault on women, minorities, and immigrants, he thinks little of our service members, veterans, and fallen. How are veterans not disgusted with the fact he called our community members and war fallen heroes ‘losers’ and ‘suckers’? He has relentlessly picked fights with members of the military-affiliated community or looked down his nose upon the sacrifices made by our nation’s military members and Axios is but one organization that marks those instances. I am a two-time Iraq war veteran and our nation lost 275 service members during my first tour. Trump’s demeanor is nothing but an insult to their families who have had to move forward without their loved ones. And he couldn’t even be civil to fellow Republican Nikki Haley and respect her husband’s military service when they were both vying for the Presidential nomination. As someone who flouted every opportunity to avoid Vietnam service, he does not have my respect. I was 20 when I volunteered THE. FIRST. TIME. to serve in Iraq. We are two very different types of Americans. I care about seeing our nation move forward and he’s one who wants to see it take a large detour backwards. We are beyond fortunate that his attempt to reduce VA disability compensation for individually unemployable veterans did not have enough backers to go through. Our nation struggles enough with homelessness among the veteran community: we don’t need to add to it with inappropriately reducing benefits for those in need.
Please Vote Carefully
There’s not a whole lot more to say other than I wish every person voting this year looks critically at all candidates and issues up and down the ballots. My choice to leave the Republican party behind has not transpired into wholly believing all Democrats have good intentions. Senator Bob Menendez’ 18 convictions this year is a good case-in-point. His misuse of his position is appalling and it’s a great thing for our nation that he’s resigning from his position. In closing, I’d also like to mention over the years I’ve voted for Republican and Democrats. I don’t believe that because I was a Republican that my duty was to vote along party lines. Each candidate brings a different type of experience, education, and perspective to numerous problems the United States faces and I hope as a nation, we work more each day towards bipartisanship and away from the political division that has eroded our nation significantly in the past 10-20 years. I want to enjoy a better American experience today for myself, my family, and for the people that look to the United States as a land of opportunity and a leader on the global stage. We cannot be as great a nation when the amount of infighting erodes our ability to govern effectively and makes us look like dysfunctional siblings instead of competent and respectful leaders across our local and global communities.
I’ve been keeping a secret under wraps for roughly a month—and I’m excited to finally share the details.
We took a big leap of faith and bought a new home in Phoenix, Arizona.
Last year my husband and I started to look seriously into this endeavor and there were challenges along the way. A home located on 1/3 of an acre enticed us to consider giving up our lower mortgage rate in favor of more space. The backyard was exactly what we were craving after being in such close quarters with neighbors for decades. The listing photos were good: the house was spacious, the yard enough of a clean slate for our own vision, and sufficient parking. Once inside, we saw the house was a bit grimy and the homeowners crammed every nook and cranny with their stuff so we could not see if the house itself was in good shape and just needed a thorough cleaning. We gave up on our dream backyard and instead considered putting an offer on a less desirable lot for a home with a beautiful kitchen for home chefs like us in a nearby neighborhood that was move-in ready. After consulting with our lender, I realized the pay cut I took when switching federal jobs put us in a difficult position to swing that mortgage payment. Our realtor, Jessica Smith, from Retro Real Estate took our disappointment in stride and we discussed getting back in touch once a promotion came through. Luckily, it was only a matter of months to move up in my career and then we resumed our search with her. I was drawn to how she did not rush us to make a purchase and instead wanted to ensure we found a home that fit us, knowing it was important that we’d be happy with our purchasing decision.
For the time I was waiting on a promotion, we continued to keep an eye on home listings around the $395,000 to $550,000 price range. There were other listings under this price point that I liked except for the fact the homes only had a single bathroom. We’d go back and forth on single family homes versus townhomes/condos. The latter often had community features we liked, but the big drawback to many came in the form of either single stall garages without driveways for other vehicles or high HOA fees. I felt we could tolerate a two-bedroom house or townhome, as my original goal was to downsize on square footage. The feature we did not want to compromise on was total number of bathrooms. We’ve enjoyed having two bathrooms in our residences since approximately 2007 and it’s not something we wanted to give up. For our home search, the original search parameter included Chandler, Tempe, and Phoenix. I saved 44 listings with each home’s best feature as my inspiration for comparison purposes. Sometimes, it was a wraparound front porch that caught my eye and made me think of my favorite tv home (Lorelai Gilmore’s house in “Gilmore Girls”, other times it was a swimming pool in the backyard (perfect for our hot summers), a vintage style fireplace for cozy fall and winter nights spent indoors, and one home even had clerestory windows, which are among my favorite architectural details.
What We Saw Versus What We Bought
As a bit of background, my husband and I first came across Retro Real Estate through Instagram. What started as fun looking at several older properties through their social media made it easier to later decide we wanted to work with this agency. The agency’s focus on explaining different eras of home building and the communities the homes were in helped put me at ease over leaving Gilbert, Arizona. We settled into Gilbert in 2015 and for many years, I never imagined I’d live anywhere else. I first fell in love with the community based on the Agritopia neighborhood and flocked as well to the Riparian Preserve for family walks. In downtown Gilbert, I found some of the best cakes at Romero’s Euro Cafe. For a short part of my career, I also worked at ASU’s Polytechnic campus a short drive away in Mesa and loved watching quail wander around the desert-centric campus and being surprised by a roadrunner on an occasional basis.
As our careers shifted over the years, it became apparent to grow professionally we’d see our best career roles in Phoenix and yet, we still stayed in Gilbert and endured a longer commute to stay put. We bought our first home (just under 1,300 square feet) in 2016 and later upgraded on home square footage and lot size in 2020. Our career journeys plus four years being stuck in our pandemic home helped push along my itch to move. To help ensure we did not constrict our home search too much, we kept the criteria a bit basic. We wanted a 3 bedroom, 2 plus bathroom, and some covered parking. Our 2020 house was in a neighborhood with a community pool, but we did not feel it was a requirement to have a community pool again (or a pool on the property itself). I think it was a great choice especially considering the fact we only used the community pool twice last year. Something that we hoped to find was a gated community, but we were flexible on that criterion, too. From here, we saw maybe a total of 6 houses in May.
One of the best things we did during our search with Jessica was to was to narrow down where we wanted to live in the valley. That was probably more important than the actual interior of the home, which could be fixed with time and effort. The new place needed to hit where we wanted to live, work, and dine out. We ultimately decided we wanted more privacy and quiet, so Tempe was out. I used to also work at ASU’s Tempe campus and being close to Arizona State University would likely mean at some point we’d have college student neighbors and/or be bothered by the extra vehicular and pedestrian traffic close to the campus itself and Mill Avenue. The homes I liked most in Chandler did not reduce our commute to a point where it would be worth taking on a higher mortgage, so I looked further into Ahwatukee and then I had a good laugh because all the homes I liked most were in 55+ communities. (I’m only 40, so it’s a few more years before I can live in any of those neighborhoods.) Phoenix spans a pretty good distance from the north along E. Carefree Highway to the 202 at the south, and I loved how different the neighborhoods were compared to Gilbert. I can drive by rather rural or low density neighborhoods all the way through modern tightly packed apartment complexes and see historic homes when I have to commute. There are some mountain views in the upper and southern parts of Phoenix, too. Now that we’re also on the other side of the valley, we’ve opened up a slew of new restaurants to frequent. Ahead of our move, we enjoyed dinner at Hana Japanese Eatery in Phoenix and Mimi Forno Italiano in Laveen Village. After being drained by the two-day move, we opted for some ultimate comfort food, trying out fried chicken, fried okra, and a bucket of fries from Harold’s Chicken Shack in Phoenix.
This home was well cared for, but the sellers did not want to pay the buyer’s agent commission fee, a fee we could not currently pay based on VA loan practices that don’t update until August 2024.Kitchens are a big selling feature for me when looking at homes. I love cooking. This 1950’s home had one of the prettiest kitchens, but it lacked the practicality I need for how I cook.Of the homes we toured, this one had one of the best feels overall for all interior spaces. On the other hand, the community parking wasn’t as great plus it had built up landscaping we’d have to tear out to keep our dogs from escaping the yard, and was located on a busy street, so we decided against it, too.
The homes we looked at varied between one built in the 1950’s all the way through a 2023 property and our realtor took the time to point out pros and cons of each property, so we weren’t looking at places through rose-colored glasses. It was good to have someone unbiased in the property search, because I can get anxious about losing out on a property to someone else and ignore things that would later bother me as an occupant of the home. Not only can a realtor point out those things, but they have knowledge about larger picture issues. For those not aware, there was a substantial real estate lawsuit settled recently and although it has been common practice for sellers to pay both the seller’s agent commission and buyer’s agent commission, mid-July 2024 is the turning point to where that’s no longer part of the advertising process. My husband and I were already aware of it from the news and hadn’t thought it would impact our search that much, but Jessica was upfront about it when we were looking at the pool property and had to let us know the sellers didn’t want to pay the buyer’s agent commission.
In our case, we were using a Veterans Affairs (VA) backed home loan. Not all sellers are keen on VA loans. For years, the VA did not allow veterans to pay the buyer’s agent commission. Starting August 10th, they will allow veteran buyers to do so that way they are competitive with other buyers and not unduly harmed by market changes. There wasn’t much issue for us leaving that pool property as a standby to see if that would sway the owners to change their position; it was a nice looking house inside, but we knew there was a good chance another suitable property would come up. I am also grateful there were more home opportunities this year around compared to how many sellers in our price range were willing to accept a VA-backed loan in 2016. I can only recall about 4 listings that indicated they accepted VA loans and we toured all of them. The pool of options available to us in 2024 gave us more freedom to be more particular although we keep our criteria to a minimum. Jessica also recommended seeing no more than 5 properties at a time because they can blur together and it was the kind of advice we needed to hear. Slowing down our approach allowed us to walk through the properties with a critical eye to try and imagine ourselves living there. Other than that pool house, no other sellers seemed intent on paying only the seller’s agent fee and due to that, we just focused on what homes did or did not have that suited us.
We knew from experience to disregard a home owner’s design choices and personal photos; seeing past these issues, we focused on the home’s layout, how community parking would impact having guests over, and how the homes’ conditions could reduce our risk of being a drain on our finances compared to other fixer upper properties. Removing some properties from our list of options was a bit harder for me than my husband as friends shared a Moon Valley property with great bones that was woefully outdated. Every room would have been a project and the was the added risk the plumbing or HVAC needed addressing, too, making it not worth the risk. We missed out on being super close to these guys, but our friendship has survived a longer drive and I thanked them for trying to help us in our search.
From the ones we toured, it was easier to discover right away what wouldn’t work. A 1,400 square foot home sounded ok due to the oversized yard until we saw the outdoor space lacked any privacy based on two story homes surrounding it and the kitchen was apartment-sized. The 1950’s home, the smallest we considered, had the most interesting updates inside, but the home across the street was an eyesore we did not want to look at and we had concerns regarding whether the single carport was built to code. The newest home ticked a lot of our needs although street parking was tight. We also weren’t comfortable with the the door to the backyard space being right next to the master bedroom and the master closet was too small to fit both our wardrobes. Ultimately, we lucked out and found our dream home in the neighborhood which had the 1/3 acre property we saw last year. The new home was not only in better shape than its counterpart, it also boasted a better view and had some landscaping in the form of citrus trees.
Selling Amid Market Changes
Because our early leg of home searching with Retro Real Estate was so positive, even with our purchasing delay, we decided to also work with the agency on listing our Gilbert property. John O’Hagan took on this role for us and there was never a 100% handoff. We became a team: my husband, myself, Jessica, John, and later, the listing photographer, William. Our symbiotic relationship developed organically. Hosting Jessica and John over to our Gilbert house to discuss the state of the property, we we went over selling expectations from their perspective and ours, how decluttering helps during the selling process, and detouring our conversation a bit towards our shared love of dogs felt as natural as talking to a few close friends about our moving journey. To help ensure the Gilbert house looked its best, we were coached to pare down our personal possessions. Taking down other personal photos at John’s recommendation was a small inconvenience and after receiving a list of comparable houses, we packed up more things to ready the house for its listing photos. By the time I met with William, there was a very little I needed to do so he could photograph the home in a timely manner. The amount of work for everyone in a short window of time required everyone doing their part, and I couldn’t be happier with the professionalism shown by this team. We were always informed promptly of changes or delays and never felt it was awkward to ask questions as part of advocating for ourselves against prospective buyers’ wants and needs.
To give you an idea of how short a window we all worked within, after completed the other steps mentioned above over a few weeks’ time, we first signed our listing documents on June 7th and listed the house June 14th. Along the way to drafting the MLS profile, Jessica and I kept in touch to ensure the right boxes were checked off (type of flooring, updates, etc.). The suggested home price came from comparable homes (comps) both within and a short distance away from the neighborhood we were in. Our property appreciated well over the past four years although I did learn—we all do learn the hard way, don’t we?!—that our selected upgrades did not garner the same return as I might have expected compared to other homes that retained builder finishes. (More on that in a minute.) Finding the right team to work through the process was more important this time compared to being a first-time buyer and not having as much at stake financially. Our first home cost us $172,000. For the years we lived there, our updates only came from basic selections available through Home Depot and IKEA. I think at most we paid about $2,000 for indoor storage updates and sold the home with the fridge and the eat-in kitchen’s island dining table with storage shelves. We paid roughly $5,000 to professionally paint the two-story exterior after getting a nasty gram from the HOA about the worn paint, otherwise we would have waited longer to paint. We sold that home for $240,000 and used proceeds to make a few of the updates to what became our pandemic residence. With the 2024 listing, we wanted a timely sale and made that a goal from the very beginning. It wasn’t our intent to sell our home for top dollar, although that would have been nice. We did not want to float two mortgages. The home was listed on a Friday, we got an offer that evening, worked through some counter offers with a final price accepted on Sunday. Retro Real Estate was key to our success. My husband and I lack the experience to successfully pull off a “For Sale By Owner” listing and likely we would have overpriced the home, delaying a sale. While the home sale is not yet finalized, it will sell before we have two mortgage payments due. Goal (almost) accomplished.
Our Journey with Home Updates
How we bought the house.How we left it.
Originally, we wanted to put some of the first home’s proceeds towards a trip to Hawaii and instead found ourselves doing one home update after another. The pandemic hitting in March of 2020 delayed our travel goal and we soon found ourselves, like other Americans, dumping more money into our home to make it a comfortable place to live and work. The only project we initially expected to do right away was clean the home’s carpet. When we moved in, it had an awful smell. What we assumed was a litter box odor when we visited during an open house turned out to be carpet ruined by pet urine. The thousand dollars or so we spent cleaning the carpet barely did a thing. The 2020 estimate to remove the damaged floors, cut into the baseboards to install hardwoods, the French oak flooring, and labor tallied approximately $17,000, covering the upstairs flooring and the staircase. Because the update did not translate into a higher asking price than our comps, I try to remind myself the updates, like this one, were for us to enjoy—and we did enjoy them. This one translates to about $11.64 of enjoyment. Our 2020 backyard estimate was $5,510 to add a metal privacy screen, extend pavers on the patio and out through our back gate to the alley, and remove the plant material and rocks to install pea gravel. We spent more than this amount as roughly a year and a half later to remove the pea gravel—it got everywhere when the dogs played—and professional install pet grade artificial turf. Given the later update, the minimum amount we paid per day to enjoy the backyard update was $3.77. Hawaii kept getting put on the back burner as the pandemic lingered and Hawaii was hit or miss as far as being opened to tourists. We made time for other travel adventures, but we found ourselves with other unexpected home projects on our plates, too.
The bare bones beginning.A backyard meant for people and their pets.
There were two big updates that did not come out of the first home proceeds, the dishwasher and the hot water heater, plus other smaller projects to undo the bad decision by the first owners to put artificial turf in the garage and add more storage and make the home further pet friendly. Both appliances failed over time; I am not sure why the dishwasher broke since it wasn’t too old and the water softener made our water heater more susceptible to issues. I covered the dishwasher replacement through paid out annual leave and sick leave after leaving Social Security Administration. The brand we went with cost $3,000, including labor. The water heater was $2,700 with labor, including a lifetime service plan that we transferred to our new home. Those two replacements were only done last year so our cost to enjoy was about $15.61 per day. The custom dog door was around $900, and we spent maybe $1,000 for upper garage storage racks. Both of those were installed in 2020 allowing us to enjoy those for $1.30 a day. The garage on the other hand was a design choice due to the old owners’ home-based fitness business and it was ugly and gross smelling when the artificial turf got wet. The garage project costs us more in manpower to remove the artificial turf than did renting a floor scraper from Home Depot (about $115) and I am glad we held off on new epoxy floors after seeing the other improvement projects did not bump up our listing price in a measurable way. Instead, these options contributed to a faster sell, which is still important to learn from. Knowing what I know now and having seen that we bought a house every four years and could see ourselves in that boat again down the road, I will be more cautious about what projects we take on with the new home.
It took about 2-3 days to rip out all the artificial turf and to scrape much of the adhesive off the floor.
I would like to spend our upcoming home proceeds a little more towards other goals, like retirement and travel, but there are additional expenses for the new home to consider. We’ve already purchased new weather stripping, have priced out landscaping maintenance, and scheduled for a replacement side garage door. The latter has suffered years of water damage and has severe rot, but we negotiated a seller concession that reduced the asking price of the home to cover the replacement cost as best as possible. We opted for a higher quality steel door since Arizona has monsoon rains to contend with on a yearly basis. The fridge and washing machine negotiated with the home sale also do not work well although these issues did not show up on the home inspection. We are waiting on our replacement items to come in this week and even with these unexpected challenges, I would still encourage any prospective homeowners to not forgo a home inspection. If are you worried about your home offer looking less appealing compared to others, I would recommend shortening your inspection period. Ours was ten days for the home we bought, but the people who placed an offer on the home we’re selling presented us with a seven-day window.
I want to say I found my dream kitchen. There is space for how we cook, space to bake, and host people.
The pantry I gave up.The new one is double the size.Space for appliances, too!
Taking inspiration from designer Vern Yip’s idea that our homes should feel like vacation spaces we get to enjoy daily, I feel this home is the whole package inside and out. Now it’s just a matter of time to use what we’ve been gifted through our hard work to make this home purchase the place of our dreams. It has the footprint for how we entertain, mature trees that bring color and interest to our outdoor haven, and is located in the type of quiet neighborhood we never thought of when we we thought of ‘Phoenix’ years ago. Even with our current triple digit temperatures, I am taking every chance to enjoy our backyard views and morning and evening walks to soak in the beauty of our new community. I have some further off dreams of adding professionally framed photos honoring my time serving in Iraq and other touches to celebrate my love of Islamic architecture, the beautiful colors I’ve seen from documentaries on Morocco, and my childhood love of Egypt, which I still hope to visit some day.
And maybe, just maybe, next year will be the year we finally make those Hawaii dreams come true, too. If you’ve got some recommendations on where to go, I’d love to hear them.
We were expecting a new addition to our family May 1st. She came into our lives a few days earlier, joining our clan on April 29th. There are moments of peace. There are moments of pure agony (she bites). There are moments of reflecting that with the addition of a new family member, we are rediscovering who we are. Our impatience bubbles to the surface. We hold our breath and are scared that any slight accident can be fraught with unexpected challenges. Coffee is more than a morning perk; some days, it feels like there is never enough to keep up with her energy. The bundle of fluff we brought in our home is a big deal. She just doesn’t know it.
She joined our family to become my husband’s next service dog. His current dog, a Cane Corso, will retire later this year at the age of 7. We want to give him more time to play before he becomes incapable of playing due to old age. The original plan was to have him work for one more year. Instead, he kept dropping clues he was done being an employed body. He wasn’t excited to go to work anymore although he kind of likes it I think because it gives him time away from bites from the puppy. He’s also slowed down while working and if he’s not paying attention, then he’s not performing the tasks the way they need to be done.
Carving space in our budget and our lives again for a second dog meant sacrifices in other areas of our lives. We knew we would be forgoing an out-of-state vacation. Since she is a puppy and not a fully trained service dog, we kept our costs down but we still spent $3,000. Temperament, overall health, drive, and size mattered, so we worked to find the appropriate Belgian Malinois breeder. We loved our Belgian Malinois Sheperd mix puppy that was a companion for my husband’s service dog before his unexpected death in 2022 and the time we spent with him was a big reason why we decided to go with a Belgian Malinois for the next service dog. Training the puppy has been a full family project. Our daughter watches the puppy when we cannot during the day. (The joys of summer break.) My husband and I rotate nights staying in the living room with her while we’re potty training. If we could end up being back to sharing a bedroom again, that would be great. The couch isn’t uncomfortable, but my bed is certainly more cozy and there is less light that spills into the bedroom compared to our living room in the morning. Dinners are pretty simple. If we’re not making a big batch of rice to pair with either pre-cooked proteins or browning some ground hamburger, we’re often microwaving a few bags of veggies to prepare with reduced sodium Spam. This season isn’t about being lazy, but focusing on doing things in a thoughtful manner. We haven’t had any social outings with friends at restaurants yet while we work on proper socialization and potty training. On the upside, my husband and I are also drinking less alcohol. Neither one of us really craves a drink at night when we know we might be up at 10, 12, 2, and 4 in the morning. She’s creeping more towards being up around 10ish to use the bathroom and 4:45 wanting to start her day.
I caught a photo of the Little Miss after a moth landed on her nose.
There will be more to share later on how she’s adjusting to family life. Right now, I am pretty exhausted. Last night was my turn to be up with her and I moved positions in my federal agency earlier this month. The move came with losing fully remote status and now that I commute again, I feel like I am on a hamster wheel right now. One day, I’ll be more settled. Right now, it’s all about taking things one day at a time. I call the puppy my little terrorist at times because she will bite the legs of our chairs, lick or bite the sofa, and will chomp down on your hands when you pick her up after she’s really tired. We are learning to have respect for each other. She’s biting less now this week and I look forward to us reducing the severity and frequency even further.
My family and I recently completed a relaxing staycation in Phoenix and I loved that the rental home had several back copies of Real Simple magazine (along with several others publications like Dwell and Good Housekeeping). It is rare for me to buy magazines now because they are often so chock full of advertisements instead of useful content. This reality is why I will often pop onto the businesses’ websites instead to jump straight to the content I want to find. I selectively picked up this February 2020 copy, knowing that I had some decluttering I wanted to do in our current home.
This past year my heart has eagerly focused on wanting to move. I want to move up in my career. I want to move in the physical sense of exercising more, something that took a backseat due to health issues. I want to travel more and I accept staycations and out-of-state travel as options. We recently receiving our updated passports, too, so I expect we can start saving up for traveling out of country for an adventure next year or the year afterwards. My love for going to new places has been hampered by financial restrictions and also limited PTO (like most Americans). There are days my heart is jealous of persons living in European nations who can frequently hop on public transportation and move more easily from one nation to the next. Instead of sinking into that jealousy, I decided to do something proactive with my time.
My decluttering process also helps immensely with anxiety. Our home is just under 2,000 square feet and there are many days it feels like too much space to maintain. My body does not crave the micro apartments of New York City or Paris, but I would like something that feels more like a family home instead of a landing spot. My dad’s mom used to have a beautiful home on a lake in South Dakota. Some friends in Kentucky have a river that traverses part of their property. My dad’s home is located in a quiet neighborhood bordered by a little wooded area and there is a brewery hangout spot a short drive or a walk down the road in good weather. My younger sister lives in a home built in the 1960’s that has a layout I like a whole lot more than my complete open concept downstairs and her property is a short walk from a casual beach spot and a few restaurants. Their kids can stop in to get ice cream after playing in the water. I love that. We are getting some amenities like that where I live, but my mind still focuses on the house.
We bought in our current area for the local schools. After the pandemic hit and our daughter started schooling online, buying in this area was a decision I started to regret. It hasn’t entirely been a bad decision. I have a great relationship with my neighbor; I feel we are more like sisters than neighbors. A handful of restaurants that have gone in are great and the one that isn’t can easily be avoided. I cook better than their cooks do. The area is also very safe so we can go for walks, runs, and bike areas with very little concern for our safety. I still had to come to gripes with this box and the walls we live within. Our vacation rental provided a means to reassess the space we currently occupy. It can be years before I move out of state to somewhere like Kentucky, Indiana, or North Carolina (all still high on the list), but I can take the risk of selling sometime down the road and picking a new property that could be a better longtime investment due to growth in other communities.
I decided to play with my look at use a lot of different colors and patterns like Great British Bake Off baker, Kim-Joy. My daughter loved the look.
This closet in the vacation rental provided a lot of inspiration that it can be easy to build storage to house more than what we need to retain for practicality purposes and sentimental concerns. I should have measured the closet because it does have room for seasonal and in-season storage needs. I like that it is setup in the master suite so you don’t have to go find things in other household closets for these items. The residence was about 2,800 square feet, so I had the chance to live in a larger home to see what works or does not work at the footprint. I was most happy that each bedroom and the gathering areas has seating arrangements perfect for reading and that reality can be replicated in any home, regardless of its size.
Tackling what to downsize this time was a bit easier because I’ve been on this journey for years. Before we sold our first home in 2020, we had already donated hundreds of books, ill-fitting clothes and shoes, and tackled some excess papers. I still found we came into the new house with too much stuff! My obsession with journaling has gotten away from me over the years and with a clear mind, it was good to see most of those weren’t serving my needs. I tossed a middle school journal where I lamented my mother having a better relationship with my other siblings. I ripped apart a high school journal where I confronted, again, a boyfriend who was unfaithful for our entire relationship. (He has grown into a better man and apologized. He is still married to the woman he cheated on me with, so there’s no repairing the friendship though. She and I aren’t going to be friends. The apology is enough.) A travel journal about my high school trip to Cape Verde was hardly anything more than discussing being an outsider among my American school peers. The best reminders of the trip are showcased in some loving photos I still keep to this day. 2024 was a repeat of paperwork reduction.
Paperwork and photos are my kryptonite.
I try not be overwhelmed and saddened by events I experienced, some things I put myself through, and people that I’ve lost.
Here’s what I parted ways with in 2024:
Old Marine Corps cartoons I drew (keeping only two and a realistic pen drawing of Marines sleeping in MOPP)
High School report cards and official transcripts (3.75 GPA doesn’t matter when you have two grad degrees)
Marine Corps training certificates from Technical Escort school (I am not in the CBRN community anymore)
Photo duplicates and bad quality photos
Condolence cards after my mother’s death (I did keep one because my teacher wrote a lot of heartfelt messages)
Old cards from my Grandmother with basic greetings (I did keep meaningful letters she wrote)
Letters from one of my high school best friends (We are no longer friends and stopped talking about 2006)
Old VA decision letters (after carefully shredding them because they contain PII)
Board games we don’t play or don’t play often enough
Books donated to the public library (Mine included There’s No Such Thing as An Easy Job, How to Pronounce Knife, Stiff, etc.)
I am trying to find a balance between Marie Kondo’s “Does is spark joy?” and the reality that some of my possessions are practical even if they don’t always bring me joy. I don’t follow a modern minimalism approach as I feel some of those houses come off real cold, but too much stuff makes me feel like I have too much to maintain and I lose track of what I already possess.
Staying in that rental where possessions can be spread out and breath a bit more was more helpful than I expected. I could see my hobbies haven’t changed all that much since my early 20’s. I grew to love cooking after separating from the Marine Corps. A family and friends centric kitchen and dining area will always be important to me. My mom worked hard to get me to love reading and that grounding activity still matters to me. Sure, I don’t need a library that rivals the one in “Beauty and the Beast.” Right now, I have a few on display and because a move is financially possible this year, some other favorites are tucked away, including Anna Kendrick’s Scrappy Little Nobody, DIY MFA, and Lauren Graham’s Talking As Fast as I Can: Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between). I am actually eager for Kelly Bishop’s The Third Gilmore Girl to be released later this year to add it to my collection.
Paring down photos is still an ongoing journey. I haven’t completely pared down my Marine Corps collection, but last year we finally tossed our Marine Corps recruit training yearbooks. They weren’t doing anything fabulous in our lives (and I’m hardly photographed plus mine look awful). I also destroyed the bulk of our excess Marine Corps camouflage uniforms last year too by rendering them unserviceable before they went into the trash. Our daughter is starting to be more interested in our Marine Corps careers, so I selectively set aside some photos not in albums. I figured this way she can easily find them when she wants to look at them and if not this weekend, maybe next weekend I will write down where I was at in them.
Me in 2003 (left) left photo and on the far right (right photo) at Marine Corps Combat Training (East Coast)Me (center) with two sailors I met while attending Command and Control Personal Computers (C2PC) at Naval Base Coronado in 2004. My coworker, Balsam, is on the far left (seated). We worked together stateside and on my first tour in Iraq, although on different shifts. These are two of my favorite photos from Al Asad Air Base, Iraq (July 2006)
Clearing out some physical space in my life and more mental clarity is what my April needed. As a short snippet, I was reading through old journal entries sent to my family members and their letters to me. Revisiting these sentiments was a real strong clue that the Marine Corps needed to revamp how it treats service members in need of medical care and I should have trusted my instincts more. Decluttering can be calming although it does often bring trauma up to the surface.
Right now, we are in the process of adding a new fur baby to the family. My husband’s service dog will retire sometime this year and this new bundle of fluff will have a lot of hands-on training with the family to step into his role. In anticipating her arrival, I cleared out all the old veterinary invoices for our dog, Gregor, and the ones for our guy, Radar, who passed in 2022. Removing the vet bills was one of the hardest things to tackle this year. Our time with Gregor is limited based on his age and Radar’s death resulted from a swift decline in his health. I don’t have the heart right now to part ways with the journal entry I wrote for Radar just before his passing or the obituary I wrote after he passed.
My journey is a reminder it’s ok to keep even some sad memories. And it’s more important to talk about those experiences. We’re not meant to pent up all our pain. But when the right time comes, we can release it.
Shred useless papers. Burn or toss the photos that need to go. Write and edit your reflections.
Talk about it with your friends, family, and strangers (depending on your comfort level).
Declutter and regain your power to breath life into your dreams.
I don’t know that it will ever feel normal to witness war. Not that it should.
As a woman, I also have a different viewpoint. Men are often thought of as warriors and yet, I’ve been one. In fact, I still appreciate that my old boss in the Marine Corps called me ‘Warrior’ like the guys. I wasn’t singled out for being the only woman. In August of this year, it will be 20 years since I left for Iraq and that timeframe has been something I’ve marked rather subtly every year. It was a transformative experience. I miss how I used to smile more. Being so young and inexperienced in the world, I was in that ‘ignorance is bliss’ period we often find ourselves in. Afterwards, I was in a bit of a fight to not harm myself from how my life was unraveling, but I don’t regret how I became a better person overall. I went to Iraq with a lot of misconceptions about the country and its people.
Initially, I thought it was BS that the Iraqi people didn’t try harder to quash the insurgents infiltrating the country. What I didn’t understand in those early days on the ground is how much our presence as Americans in the country brought foreign fighters into an already distraught nation. When we took down Saddam Hussein, we left the country without a leader and trying to push our own democratic ideals were met with resistance. If the roles were reversed and a foreign military took out the American president, Americans would not be ready to lose their right to vote, their right to live without a military force stopping them on major roads and checking their persons and their vehicles, and our relatively unfettered access to food and water. The life we know as Americans would be replaced. A large portion of us don’t know what it means to go to bed hungry. Hospitals aren’t hard to find, but they aren’t drowning under a daily influx of severe trauma patients. Our social media accounts are often might currently cover personal successes, our purchases, and flaunt our travels. We aren’t employing them to voice concerns that every day might be our last (although any day can be someone’s last day).
War disrupts everyday life. Our nation hasn’t felt it first hand in quite some time, so we often cannot relate to others who are in the thick of it. For me, it’s been years since I walked in a war time environment. Other Americans might only read about it from the relative safety inside the classroom or at home as I did growing up. I read The Diary of A Young Girl by Anne Frank, like so many children around the world, when I was pretty young. I was either in late elementary school or early into my middle school studies. Having to hide so you are not murdered is not something anyone should experience. Children also cannot process trauma the same way adult cans and Anne Frank’s coverage of hiding the way her family did still impresses me. Children’s brains are still developing. Their whole beings have different needs than adults and any measure of starvation, lack of socialization, and loss of sense of security impacts them differently. Hers is not the only child’s portrayal of war that I encountered as a kid. I am not sure how long after the war in Sarajevo unfolded that I took up reading Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Wartime Sarajevo. The photos in this book are essential to the story that was published in 1993, in my opinion. The author, Zlata Filipovic, is only a few years older than me. Seeing war, in full color, from someone who could otherwise be my friend if we lived in the same area sat differently with me. I didn’t realize how normal of a childhood I was going through until I learned that kids just like me were living in wartime conditions. Later in high school, I read Night by Elie Wiesel. The way he doesn’t hide the horrors of war–in particular sharing a story of babies being used as target practice–is something we need to continue to discuss. When we soften the blow of war, we deny the harm that is going on.
My childhood was free of the stain of war. I was pretty young when my father served during the first Gulf war and I don’t really have a lot of memories from that time in my life, but a war that is thousands of miles away feels different for families than one right in their backyard. My mother and us kids were temporarily without the man who supported us; she lost her partner to share the burden of household and child rearing and us kids lost access to a parent who cared about our wellbeing and safety. His paycheck though still paid the bills and kept food on the table. I never lived in a nation that saw the value of its currency fall. I did not travel on foot to escape incoming munitions or hide from soldiers on the ground. My siblings and I were not robbed of our parents, like the plethora of orphans based on the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza.
The time I spent on the ground in Iraq taught me to empathize with the Iraqi people and the problems associated with our presence there. My introspections changed. I shared more with my family about life on base. We had a small Post Exchange (PX), a battalion aid station (BAS), a bank, a mail center, an AT&T phone center, a chow hall, and there were small housing enclaves for service members sprinkled through the base along with separate communities with Triple Canopy employees and a cordoned off housing arrangement for third country national (TCN) workers. Next year, it will be 20 years since I returned and it’s not completely abnormal to notice that our footprint in Iraq has some of the same problems of the European Americans taking over North America and relegating American Indians to reservations. Who wouldn’t want their land back? (Note: This is also a similar problem in places like Japan where service members’ drunken debauchery and physical and sexual assaults on locals, aircraft noise, and the excess imprint of American troops, equipment, and housing needs places a disproportionate burden on people not fairly compensated by our government and the military justice system doesn’t punish service members’ criminal activity in a way that serves victims’ needs and expectations.)
My experiences are why I have been stunned by how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is devastating Gaza in retaliation of Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7th, 2023. His initial assault back on Hamas is definitely akin to the U.S. starting its War on Terrorism after 9/11. What I would have hoped is the decades we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan and the lessons from those wars (good and bad) were absorbed by him and he would not try to root out terrorists in a similar fashion. I think it’s ok that he had something he needed to do to address the assault on Israel. Given how much though Israeli intelligence failed to see the attack coming (again much like the attacks on 9/11), he should have carefully worked with the appropriate teams to selectively hunt down involved Hamas’ militants. He wasn’t going into a situation where there were clearly established military targets and training camps out in the middle of nowhere that would reduce the risk of civilian casualties in his response. Instead, he seems to relish that he’s devastating an entire population. And this is not a popular view at all, but others have already said it, how does he not see that his response in wiping out civilian Palestinian lives in Gaza is really starting to look like Israel has tragically forgotten what it is like for Jewish people to be hunted just for being Jewish by the Nazis?!
We made a lot of mistakes in our history here in the United States. I won’t lie and say we haven’t, but especially with the messy withdrawal in Afghanistan and continuing instability there and in Iraq, Israel had an easy reference on certain things not to do in response to terrorist events. No one is saying let the assault on Israel fall by the wayside, but his relenting attitude to punish Palestinians for an overall system many cannot change at this time has harmed not only Palestinians young and old but he is also endangering the lives of the Israeli hostages still held captive. He is risking their lives in his arrogant goal to rid the world of Hamas. He doesn’t seem to care that even if he’s successful in rooting out Hamas, the amount of people he’s angered has ruined a lot of global relations. He seems to not care that the very Israelis he indicated he wants back might die at the hands of his country’s service members. He really seems not to care that taking out some terrorist groups is very similar to pulling weeds and doing a poor job of it, ignoring the fact that other weeds are going to crop up soon. Again, because I don’t want to look like I am ignoring the United States’ war involvement in the Middle East, I encourage others to look at some of these numbers. I pulled this information off of Brown University’s Costs of War.
What originally got me started on this post today was a photo I saw recently. The photo you see below. The full story behind is is available here.
The female soldiers’ quest to document history, in selfie form, is not new. I just noticed how different it was from my service experiences. My unit and I would take photographs in areas that were well-established as ours, albeit temporarily. On Camp Blue Diamond (outside Ramadi, Iraq), the base that used to belong to one of Saddam’s sons, I photographed the outside of the blown up JDAM palace, our command center, my barracks, a view of the street and the street sign reading All American Way. When I photographed other Marines and myself, it was us in a very contained way. We were in our barracks, inside our work building, riding in a vehicle, etc. On the second tour, I was stationed at Camp Al Asad (in the vicinity of Al Asad, Iraq) and my photographs were mostly the same. My peers and I took some photographs on the base and around non-serviceable aircraft. There were a few of us screwing around with our decon system truck and we had essentially a large dishwashing foam playful fight outside our warehouse. On both tours, there are stoic photos of us and ones where we’re smiling. There are no shortages of weapons in the shots.
What’s missing though is a view of active destruction.
I don’t know that I could ever take a photo of myself smiling in front of a destroyed community. Even something like a memorial site is something I feel is off limits. I’d be just as offended for someone to smile in front of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. I’d be disgusted for someone to pose with an Outfit of the Day post in front of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. A carefully crafted selfie at the Flanders Field American Cemetery and Memorial would also make me cringe. It is not that I am opposed to photographing these sites and building an understanding of what occurred, it is simply that I don’t think we should be prancing around in such a manner on an area where mass casualties occurred. I am ok with being a photographer capturing the landscape and the absence of people. I appreciate showing the preservation of history (the maintenance of historic buildings, museum artifacts, etc.) and discussing what it means to be physical present at site versus just learning about it in a classroom.
As an example, the year my mother died, my dad took my siblings and I to Washington D.C. and we visited a number of museums and sites during our brief stay. I cannot etch it all into memory. Aside from our collective groan during the road trip that “Drops of Jupiter” was being over played, we bonded over seeing how our country recognized the sacrifice of our nation’s service members over the years. Standing before the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall made me feel incredibly small. The large expanse of names carved into stone starts slowly at one end and builds up until the wall intersects with another and slowly peters out until it is flush with the concrete sidewalk closely aligns with how war builds and comes to a conclusion. The way it is also cut into the earth leaves quite an impression: We are left with a strong message that humans are solely responsible for the construction of war and we have a duty to remember what happened to avoid it from occurring again. Walking next to the Korean War Memorial statues is something I struggle to express. You find yourself next to ‘persons’ in the middle of their military patrol and essentially witness their communication with each other. That ground level view is important as I think we’ve started to disassociate ourselves with the impact of war based on increasing use of military technology and think less of the human toll of war.
That’s why I wanted to share what I did today. I think the Israeli Prime Minister forgets he’s playing with innocent human lives in his ambition to eradicate Hamas and he seems to be ok with it. Again, I am ok with the fact he wants to get justice for the Israelis killed on October 7th, 2023, but he should be selective in his targets and bring to justice the Hamas assailants. Collectively punishing the Gazan populace is not the way to go and I still believe he should study past wars and their toll on local citizens so he can reduce the civilian death toll as much as possible.
Most people outside my family don’t know that I was born premature and medical staff told my mother that I wasn’t going to make it. This woman who already had a one year old child at home. A young mother, she was not content to believe these individuals whose educational experience I still cannot compete with in spite of holding two graduate degrees. She was stubborn. She refused to believe them and relied on the love and prayers of many to see me through. Medical technology for preemies wasn’t as great in the 80’s as it is today, so what was at their disposal and the people who loved me and so many I’ll never meet who prayed for me got me through those difficult early days.
And when I say difficult, I’m talking three months premature. Oh yeah, and this was a twin pregnancy for my mother. I came into this world a tiny little thing. 2 pounds, 4 ounces.
How my mom could look at me in such fragile state and believe all would be ok in this world floors me. My husband and I greeted our own daughter years ago with the news she would be born with a limb difference and I remember being so anxious during that pregnancy and scared of all the things this world might rob her of being due to her limb difference. But I wasn’t scared she wouldn’t survive. She was a healthy 6 pounds, 6 ounces. My mom could have been one of those mothers planning a funeral for her baby.
And around the world, so many mothers have been doing just that years and years over. On top of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, this January mothers of three soldiers lost their babies in Jordan when their base was attacked and earlier this month, moms of five Marines lost their kids when these young men died in their helicopter crash in California. Their deaths are something that struck right at my heart, having handled the activity reports for 1st Marine Division during my first Iraq tour. Their lost lives continue to encourage me to appreciate everyone who fought to keep me alive as a baby, something I cared little about when I was at rock bottom coming home from that first tour.
This situation is in part why I went to the Department of Veterans Affairs for health care for the first time recently. (The other part being that private health insurance is getting out of hand and I feel that my primary doctor might not be best suited to connecting all my health problems to service experiences.) I’ve struggled for the past year with edema. For my regular readers, I know, another health issue. My body is in a weird IDGAF stage. They just keep coming. I went to the ER last April after I gained 9 pounds in two days from fluid retention. From the 5 hours I was there, a series of tests didn’t reveal much except for an abnormally high B-Type Natriuretic Peptide in my blood work. Since this issue can indicate I am at more risk for heart failure, I appreciate that my local VA team is taking the matter seriously.
I’ve been trying to take care of the edema on my own, without going back to my non-VA primary medical provider this past year. That ER visit alone was pretty pricey and I was fortunate most of it was covered by insurance. It wouldn’t be financially feasible to have my regular insurance cover what the VA is doing to investigate the source of my edema. My vitals were taken and we did an EKG during the same visit, without delay. Both individuals asked me about my symptoms and the challenges the edema is creating in my life. I did not want to admit to anyone earlier that I can barely work out currently. I used to work out around an hour to two hours a day either lifting weights and/or jogging around my neighborhood. Now, I struggle if I walk too much in a day. Running is out of the question right now. If I walk too quickly, even a mile long walk brings on edema that lasts most of the day. I even alternate sitting and standing to bring some relief. I’ve switched to 20-30 minute at-home yoga sessions and plan to continue with these videos, even if I find one day coming up I can add running and weights back to my routine. Our daughter joins me as I work through Yoga With Adriene videos. Her companionship makes me feel a little less sad that I cannot workout as hard as I was prior to developing edema. The situation though is not a standalone matter.
When I visited the other day, we covered some of the introductory things, not just the edema. I felt it was imperative to discuss with the medical provider my concern that years of PTSD physical pain, in the form of chest pains, might be weakening my heart and therefore be the connection to the abnormal peptide level. (If we discover the edema has another cause, that’s just as valuable. I just need to know what’s happening so we can treat it and life feels more normal.) We’re waiting on blood work to rule out other issues and in the next few months, I have a cardio stress test and an ultrasound of my heart scheduled to see where my heart function is standing today. The professionalism of the involved staff members is something I want to reiterate today because the VA has not always had the best reputation and I was nervous to use VA health care after it took years for my chest pains to be recognized by the Veterans Benefits Administration as service-connected. I don’t really like talking–writing is easier–to strangers about my service experiences right away, but the visit entailed a brief mental health check-in.
I had a few triggering situations a short duration ahead of my scheduled medical visit, but I would encourage other veterans to be honest about their mental health struggles. For me, there was a scene in “Band of Brothers” (The Breaking Point episode) where Joe Toye is hit by artillery and loses his leg. I was watching it with my family last weekend and it hit me so hard. We bypassed the rest of the scene. The situation brought on a panic attack and the day wasn’t helped either as we tried to unwind with a walk and I wasn’t paying attention that a neighbor was setting up model rockets for some kids. Keeping this experience in mind, I was compelled to let the provider know that I’d recently had an uptick in symptoms and that I am easily startled. We’ll tackle a mental health visit another day, but I want to focus on two other things in this conversation because suicide prevention and personal safety matter to me. I want other veterans to feel like it’s ok to talk to their providers about similar (or worse) things they’ve experienced to ensure they receive appropriate care.
It was a lot to admit to the VA that I contemplated suicide in 2005 after serving in Iraq and that during the tour, my supervisor touched base with me about a male Marine who had made threats against my person. I recognize to avoid feeling suicidal in the future, there are certain ways I control my environment to feel safe. Sometimes, it has an impact of friends and family around me, but often times, it’s more an inconvenience rather than projecting my pain upon them. A big thing that helps is controlling my alcohol intake. I am happy to admit that it’s been years since I’ve drank a kamikaze. That was the drink I’d indulge in to numb my pain. Abusing alcohol is something that I could have sought treatment for in the Marine Corps if I felt it was safe and wouldn’t fuck with my career, but as the only woman in my unit, it was something I didn’t take seriously. I am lucky it didn’t progress further, but I would encourage others to put their health and wellbeing above the mission. The service will ALWAYS find enough people to fill its billets, even if it requires moving people into temporary additional duty assignments. I am fortunate I didn’t die by my own hands. The only commitment I made to myself was making it through the worst night of my life, and I actually talked to my sister, Megan, about this when I went home in January for one of my uncle’s funerals. I made the choice to stick through my pain for her back in 2005. We had a terrible relationship growing up and I didn’t want that to be a memory for her. She was my lifeline well before I admitted it to her. It’s not something I want to talk about today–that pain still hurts–but I love the space she’s given us to be closer as adults. The second issue–military sexual trauma adjacent or directly, depending on who you speak to–is not something I’ve ever talked to a doctor about. I’ve never understood how to approach it. I was unsure how to take speaking to my supervisor, my mentor and a pseudo father figure on deployment, about someone who abused my trust. When I discovered he made threats against me, I wasn’t sure what that meant for my safety when I would eventually return stateside. (I don’t have the full details, so I decided to say fuck it and put in a FOIA request to see if the Marine Corps would have a record I could access. The likelihood of ever working with or encountering said person again is highly unlikely, but I might as well arm myself with knowledge just in case.)
I had enough going on in my life with my grandmother’s declining health to fully address how to cope with the situation that another Marine might pose a threat to my health and wellbeing. And, now years later, it probably had a huge impact on my friendships and the addictive relationship I had with my partner at the time. I accepted a lot of red flag behaviors that were offset by the fact I knew we were both war fighters. He could physically protect me as I could protect me. It wasn’t until I returned home when I had to turn my rifle into the armory and my flak and helmet to CIF (Consolidate Issue Facility) that I was more vulnerable in a physical and an emotional way.
I never once asked my command why the problematic person was gone when I returned. People leave units all the time and I didn’t put two and two together, but I notice how the risk to me put me on guard with others in my life. Did it play a role in my alcohol abuse? I don’t know that I could distinguish that situation separately from other events in Iraq. It does make me concerned about the people our daughter might one day encounter and/or date. As a nation, I think we’ve accepted poor behavior on the part of men as the norm and we still have a long way to ensure that men don’t resort to violence, threats (of any kind), and disparaging women to make themselves look better in comparison to other men. I’ve communicated to my husband what boundaries I’ve developed from this situation. It hasn’t stopped me from maintaining a longterm relationship, but it took a long time to see that what I went through does, in fact, fall under the umbrella of military sexual trauma. When I previously discussed my military experiences with a professor at Arizona State University, I wasn’t originally willing to believe it fell under that designation because it wasn’t sexual assault or what we recognize sexual harassment to look like.
I don’t want to end today on a sad note. It’s exciting to be turning 40 tomorrow.
I took today and tomorrow off, resulting in a fantastic 4-day weekend chock full of fun adventures and lots of relaxing. I will treat myself to a Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake ice cream bar inspired birthday cake with a side of Tillamook strawberry ice cream. My birthday cocktail will be a strawberry tequila sour. We have dinner plans Saturday and another event, centered on our daughter, for Sunday. My actual birthday gift is an experience I’ll get to enjoy in April. I will probably share more about it after the event. And I wanted to give an update on our 2024 financial goals.
Get promoted at work. (Feb. 29th: Still working on getting promoted.)
Sell 2nd house. (Feb. 29th: We’re still considering this, but it is contingent on what the promotion looks like and where the promotion opportunities are located.)
Order new passports. (Feb. 29th: Ordered and in processing. We spent $160 each for the adult passport and passport cards. Our daughter will be 14 this year, so her passport renewal and passport card costs us $115.)
Travel: 1 big trip. (We have zero idea where we want to go. Haha.)
Travel: 3 staycations (Feb. 29th: We have one staycation planned; the other two are still TBD.)
Enjoy all the days you’re given. Life is short. Have fun and show up for yourself.
I am writing a little early in the month and while I know it’s nothing to apologize for, I hope you, my readers, find the quality still up to your standards. Not that I’ve ever intended to write and post my blog entries around the 23rd of the month, but it’s something I’ve noticed I do. Years ago, I hoped to write on a weekly basis. I wanted to compete with full-time bloggers, but that’s just not realistic given I also work a regular 40-hour a week job and in the past while also completing two graduate degrees. With my time constraints as well, I am finding there are a lot of profiles I once followed that I no longer find interesting. The amount of time I was wasting looking over their content inspired me to cull the accounts I followed (and honestly, how many of us find ourselves in that place from time to time?).
As a consumer of social media, like other forms of media, I am starting to take a more critical eye to what I see. I remind myself scrolling through social media is still a journey that expands what I read in a day, has the potential to teach me about subjects I know little about or might rarely come across in other media formats, and is a place for me to unwind. For the time I do spend on social media, I don’t want to be constantly confronted with posts encouraging me to “buy buy buy” or to hustle my life existence away. Could I use more money?! Absolutely. Do I need to exist solely for the purpose of making and spending money? No. I have friends and family I want to spend time with and if I “live to work” and “live to consume (content or material goods)” then I am not paying adequate attention to the social connections that matter to me. In 2023, I lost two family members on my mom’s side to sudden, unexpected deaths and earlier this week, I was greeted with the news an uncle on the same side of my family passed away. Life is short, people. How do you want to spend the days you’re given? For me, it’s about being more confident with the slow, steady progress I’ve made with our finances, traveling, and catching up with friends and family (even though a lot of those moments occur via text and social media based on the distance between us).
There hasn’t been a whole lot of time since I last wrote, but I am continuing to embrace 2024 with a positive mindset and I think it’s important to touch base on how things have changed in this short amount of time. Not only would my family members who passed away want me to enjoy life, I know I also owe it to them to embrace the potential of each and every new day I receive. I do want to discuss money today because the establishment of a new yearly budget is something that I think is one of most people’s least favorite life responsibilities. In my household, I make the budget, but my husband takes on paying certain bills so not everything falls on me. He tends to be spender personality (unless it’s groceries and then I need someone to reign in my spending) and I am the saver personality in the house. Coming together as a team is a commitment and I think more so when you have joint accounts. I see the start of a new budget the same way I used to greet getting new school supplies and clothes as a kid. I love the potential of what hasn’t happened yet and writing a new chapter in my life. In those moments, I am envisioning being more confident, having fun with friends, and being the best version of myself. And that’s what your budget can be as well.
My goal this year (since I no longer make resolutions) was to purchase the Clever Girl Finance Budget Planner available through erincondren.com. On and off again, in previous jobs where I had more time to listen to podcasts, I would listen to The Clever Girls Know Podcast. I liked listening to Bola Sokunbi’s views on finance; each female podcaster that lends her voice in finance is helping to expand the conversation that for too long been a male-dominated space. It’s one thing for men to share how they succeed financially, but women often encounter more challenges regarding equitable pay and equitable childcare and housing responsibilities. Unfortunately, the planner went out of stock in late December and is still not back in stock. Being that I don’t want to wait to write my budget out in this planner, I opted to use a Sugar Paper lined notebook I already had in my home. To build my “dream” budget, I decided it needed to be laid out in a format that I haven’t found encompassed in one budget planner alone.
I’ve tried the cash flow/zero based budget with Dave Ramsey, I’ve used the Kakeibo method a few times, I also had a Clever Fox budget planner, and last year, I bought The Minimalist Planner by Kayelle Daily, but none of these completely worked for me and the last worked the least because I don’t need a planner that is built around meal planning, blocking off time, marking off “to do’s” and budgeting. I prefer a bunch of space to mull over the budget and that planner ended up being a lot of wasted pages for me. I don’t need to break down my work day and I don’t really meal plan the way other people do. I think it’s ok to admit that there was something I didn’t like about each option and others might gravitate towards these and absolutely love them. More recently, I have also gone back to looking at the 50/30/20 budget (50% of income is for needs, 30% for wants, and 20% for savings and debt repayment). If you want a calculator for that budget focus, there is an easy one at NerdWallet. My budget for 2024 is akin to America’s bastardization of other countries’ cuisines. I mushed together the ideas from each that I liked and chucked the other elements.
My budget had to start with one big overall idea. In this case, I do agree with Dave Ramsey and his preaching of a zero-based budget, meaning that each dollar has a purpose. All the other ideas that he promotes I am veering away significantly because living a heavily cash-based lifestyle was exhausting for me and stressful. If someone steals my purse with cash, I am out that cash. If someone steals my debit card and spends money from my account, I can work with my bank to get my money refunded to me. End of story. The second step was to make a 50/30/20 breakdown that works for us. Our breakdown of our zero-based budget is 50% needs, 30% savings and debt repayment because we want to add more to savings, and 20% wants. Some people like using technology to build their budget. I used NerdWallet’s 50/30/20 calculator to make the breakdowns easy, but afterwards, I used the Kakeibo method and wrote my budget down on paper. That works for me. I haven’t found a Kakeibo in a spiral bound workbook, so that’s why I used my coil bound plain paper notebook instead to budget by hand. From Clever Fox and The Minimalist Planner I previously purchased, I learned to assess my lifestyle. We must keep in mind we are not budgeting for strangers and here to impress them. I am budgeting for a family of three–a family that lives dining out, finding new things at the grocery store, that loves some serious home conveniences like our Cove dishwasher we bought last year, and we know we want to travel, not to just enjoy staycations. Our budget has multiple financial goals and we must stop or reduce spending in certain areas to focus on our priorities.
Moving into 2024, here are our considered money goals:
Get promoted at work. (If we both got promotions that would be even better!)
Sell 2nd house and consider renting/buying a less expensive house since interest rates are higher and we don’t want to see a big increase in our monthly housing costs. It doesn’t look like we’ll be moving out-of-state as had been our goal, but a move is still worth considering to reduce commute costs if the overall numbers work out.
Order new passports.
Travel: 1 big trip (We are still figuring out where to go, but I wanted to visit RI shortly to celebrate my 40th birthday with family, including my twin, and then spending time as a family of three in Cape Cod. If I get promoted this year, I might not have the same leave window, so a big trip is tentative.)
Travel: 3 staycations (I haven’t yet seen Mission San Xavier del Bac; I wouldn’t mind going up to Sedona again; and I learned about a place called Arcosanti from Instagram posts that I think I would enjoy based on my previous enjoyment visiting Taliesin West a few years back.)
I know I am not choosing to share our full budget, but I hope the breakdown of my budgeting style serves as a source of inspiration to others who dread this activity. I will do my best to keep you posted on the progress of all these goals. For now though, I am happy to report that I closed out 2023 with my first fully successful round of sourdough bread prep and it was baked on Jan. 1st. As one of my goals that is not financial in nature, I am quite proud because baking sourdough was a nightmare in 2023. I couldn’t seem to get everything to line up. I used the beginner sourdough recipe from The Perfect Loaf and I will be going back to that recipe here shortly for my second batch of sourdough for the year. We shared this bread with my next-door neighbor and dear friend and one of her friends who was in town and it was the perfect way to start 2024. (P.S. No compensation for the recommendation. I just wanted to share it’s a solid recipe.)
Being a few days ahead of Christmas, I wanted to catch up with you all before things get too busy and I completely forget to post for the month of December. I’ve spent a few weeks trying to decide what to share. This year has been a pretty big one for my family, both immediate and extended. For the first time, my family took a weeklong vacation; let me focus on that for a second. FOR.THE.FIRST.TIME. In a country where we both have paid leave time, it’s felt almost impossible to make this happen over the past few years. It’s not that we haven’t traveled, but we haven’t managed a trip that lasted seven calendar days. Not everyone would want their first weeklong vacation to be in Kentucky; they might choose Hawaii, somewhere in the Caribbean, or spend all those days ensconced in the glory of Disneyworld. I wasn’t saddened for our first long trip 1) wasn’t somewhere warm, 2)was away from the ocean, and 3) kept us stateside. We caught up with a Marine friend of ours and his family and it felt like going home. The hardest part of the trip was not being prepared for the sudden, first cold spell of the year. Once again, we did not bring enough cold weather clothes. Moving on…
As it goes for my extended family and our family relations, we lost two members on my mother’s side of the family. An aunt by marriage and a biological uncle passed away. Both were sudden news to my siblings and I. I guess part of that all comes with age; we all have our own routines and some of us live out-of-state, but there’s also the part of me that sees these deaths dug up a lot of buried feelings. We felt like we were reliving our mother’s loss because she didn’t want us to know she was dying and we had similar circumstances for these two loved ones. It takes a moment to shirk off the feeling that you do not feel a part of the familial group because you were left in the dark. I see us recovering, and I know we’re not alone in experiencing grief this year. Many in my family joked about how someone else would have to take up my uncle’s habit of eating all the deviled eggs at Thanksgiving and I know my Facebook has looked a lot different this year without seeing the positive posts my Aunt would share to bring joy to our small world. The last time I was back home was in 2019 and I don’t know when we’ll be back for the holidays there, so it will take a moment to soak in how different life is once we are all under one roof again.
Being in our small trio here (plus the dog), Christmas preparations were pared back this year. In part, we’ve still considered the possibility of moving and on the other hand, it was nice to just have less work on our hands. Our vacation checked the box for rest and relaxation needs and I like having that feeling extended further into the year. We bought a few little things from Trader Joe’s: a tabletop Christmas tree, live green garland, mistletoe, cedar scented balsam pinecones (which I put into empty vases and oversized candle holders) and a door arrangement to replace the bell ornament wreath we normally put out front. This year, we put the latter up over our dog’s oversized dog door; he might not appreciate it, but I love seeing it when we come home from errands or a night out. From our decor collection already on hand, I set out only a few things. I want to mention specifically my two origami cranes (gifts from a friend in Cody, WY and they honor the experiences of Japanese Americans who lived in internment camps in the United States during WWII). I never visited the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, but her small gift still resonates with me today. I’ve had these about 11 years now and I do think it would be worth it to get them professionally mounted so I can leave them out year round rather than just as a sign of peace and goodwill at Christmas. From our ornament collection, I only pulled out the Hallmark snowman my husband’s grandmother has purchased for us over the years. Sadly, we’ve had a few ornaments go MIA so not all years are represented. Lastly, I put out a few plaid Christmas trees from Target (which are on our last year with us) and a metal string light desktop tree (another Target find). I stopped myself from buying some cute wooden ornaments from Target, knowing that to do so was self-defeating if my goal was to keep our prep and takedown simple this year. And speaking of simple, we aren’t the type of family that goes nuts playing Christmas music and watching every Christmas movie under the sun.
There are very few Christmas songs that I like; I know that makes me sound like a Grinch, but all those traditional songs I listened to in the ’90’s are why. If I want something that speaks more of traditional Christmas sounds, I will gravitate to Frank Sinatra. When we lived in California, there was a coffee shop next to the movie theater in Oceanside that would play his music around the holidays and I love those memories. These are the songs I have on my Apple Music playlist:
One More Sleep (Leona Lewis)
Homesick (Dua Lipa)
Yule Shoot Your Eye Out (Fall Out Boy)
Present Without a Bow (Kacey Musgraves)
Coming Home to You (American Authors)
Snow (Alex G.)
The Christmas Song (Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello)
Christmas Tree Farm (Taylor Swift)
Christmas Saves The Year (twenty one pilots)
Cozy Little Christmas (Katy Perry)
Last Christmas (Ariana Grande)
For Christmas movies, there are only a few I’ve truly enjoyed. I want to start off by saying my husband is the reason I’ve seen National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. I don’t know that I would have chosen that for myself, but I did enjoy it. There are three others that I can watch each year. The one that has been my favorite for years is The Family Stone (2005). I think a big part of my love affair with the movie is that it was the first year I was home from Iraq and after that difficult year, it was the type of lighthearted comedy my life needed at the time. I am sucker for romantic comedies anyways, but this is high up there on my list of favorite comedies. Next, I adore Noelle (2019) starring Anna Kendrick. It doesn’t matter what she’s in, I will watch it. She is one of my favorite female comedic actresses, but her range of skills surprised me when I saw her in A Simple Favor (2018). If you want a little bit of a tearjerker moment for your holidays, I’d recommend Last Christmas (2019) starring Emilia Clarke. There is enough humor in the film to offset the sad moments, but it is a wonderful representation that Christmas (and other holidays) can be a mixed blessing. I am still stunned to this day that Ms. Clarke has sustained two brain aneurysms in her life and if you are still looking for a charity to support, please check out her charity, SameYou, which helps support rehabilitation options for brain injury survivors.
As we look towards 2024, I have a few things to say about closing out 2023. We won’t know where the next year will take us, but for now, we know we’re not moving in 2023. This little meme about the housing market gave me a good chuckle about having to put some plans on hold. After our Louisville, KY trip, I’ve become addicted to Zillow again and scouted houses in Louisville; outside Ft. Knox, KY, and since Indiana was big on our list, I also looked at homes in New Albany, Jeffersonville, Clarksville, Floyds Knobs, and Corydon. As alternatives, for other federal jobs on our radar, we looked at homes in northern Indiana to put us close enough to Chicago without living in Chicago; parts of Maryland; parts of Hawaii; and parts of Virginia. I have a few federal job referrals locally here in Arizona, so we might just be calling this place home a bit longer.
Trying to feel more “at home” for the holidays, I have caved and done a little holiday baking. There was a three-day whiskey gingerbread recipe from Ruby Tandoh’s Eat Up! book that I made for our neighbor and ourselves. Since our daughter is 13, I opted to use orange juice in the glaze over whiskey but next time we’ll make one completely with whiskey brushed on it and the glaze and see how we all feel. I will also use less liquid in the glaze so it sets better. Most of the glaze ran off the cake and make an orange icing puddle instead.
And there is one last thing I wanted to focus on today. This is my last year in my 30’s!!! If I had stayed in the Marine Corps, this would have also been the year I retired from military service. My life is so different now from what I envisioned it would be. I still have so much I want to accomplish, but I am also grateful that I feel more settled now, too. My 20’s were such a busy time trying to power through college and raising a young child and now there is breathing room. It might not feel like it every day, but I like that I can call it a day at the end of my work shift and there’s not a mountain of other responsibilities waiting to greet me. At this time, I am still powering through the first draft of my memoir. This thing might not be released until I’m 50, but I guess late is better than never. It’s taken a lot of courage to put pen to paper and write down some lovely moments, those cringeworthy incidents, and to own up to being a shitty human being at times. I don’t have it all figured out, but at least when you get older, you feel better about saying so. In your teens and 20’s, it’s tempting to try to fit in and compete with everyone, but once you sit back and see how others are living, you see their journey isn’t your journey. Their wants and needs aren’t your dreams and basic necessities. I am sitting at around page 245 and that’s a far cry from my 2016 start of 3 pages that I later tossed because that story was one I didn’t want to tell. I want to show I survived a lot of crap in a short period of time, and it’s the people that showed up for me that helped me become the woman I became today.
Wishing you all gentle holidays. I say this because I read from someone before it’s better to wish a gentle holiday because we don’t know what others are going through. Their holidays may not be happy this year as they encounter financial hardship, their first holiday without a loved one, or they have other things going on that don’t make them feel jolly this season.
She Wears Dogtags 