self-care

Blogging is cheaper than therapy.

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th-2Once upon a time people kept journals to deal with the tedium and trauma of daily living. These days the online world is a stage on which we can play out our lives in public, if we choose.

Not every personal website is about someone’s cute kids or cute shoes, either. Or even about a race to pay off student loans, learn a skill, start a business, homeschool their kids, buy a home or retire early.

Sometimes the poor players strut and fret some pretty intensely personal business: love, genderqueer politics, marriage, divorce, infertility, midlife reinvention, empty nests, aging, dying.

Writing helps us feel our way through chance, challenge and change. Or so I note in “When life hands you blog fodder,” a piece on the blog associated with my online writing course.

The Internet is crammed with the drab and the dramatic, adorableness and grotesqueries, rampant TMI and TL;dr. What makes for the most readable work, I think, is what one of my newspaper editors called “conflict.”

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Why I’m neglecting my Roth IRA.

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thFor the first time in seven years I’m shining on my contributions to a Roth IRA. The $6,500 that would have gone into that account will go into savings instead.

That doesn’t mean I’m ignoring retirement. I’m just changing the way I do it. The reason may not make 100 percent financial sense, but it will make me feel better.

Here’s why.

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The healing power of mashed potatoes.

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thSince last Thursday I’ve eaten very little: toast, dabs of oatmeal, a cup of tomato soup, hard-boiled eggs, a bit of yogurt. In part that’s because nothing tastes good when you’re sick. But it’s also because prolonged coughing spells left my abdominal muscles so strained I frequently felt queasy.

All I could manage this morning was some cocoa, and nothing after that until almost 2 p.m. At that time I knew I should eat something, but what? More oatmeal? Yum.

That’s when I saw the German Butterball spuds DF had brought up from the basement storage. My mind went instantly to mashed potatoes with plenty of butter and salt and pepper.

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A mess of beans.

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th-1The temperature is about five below zero, which isn’t unusual for an Anchorage winter. Even though we’re hard by Cook Inlet, it still gets chilly in the winter.

This hasn’t been an ordinary winter, though. We’ve had hardly any snow and temperatures in the 30s and even the low 40s, which is just against God. When it finally started snowing the other day even non-skiers like me were greatly relieved.

But apparently my blood has thinned, because as the thermometer settled toward the zero mark I was unreasonably cold. Wool socks weren’t keeping my feet warm. A fleece layer was necessary even in the car. I considered pulling out the long johns and maybe even zipping my coat.

Clearly what was needed was a mess of beans.

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Help with that 2015 fitness resolution.

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thAccording to Time magazine, “lose weight and get fit” is the most commonly busted New Year’s resolution. Shocking, huh?

But if 2015 is the year you absolutely, positively, seriously mean to get in shape, this week’s giveaway can help.

The 2015 Fitness Boost package contains a handful of items to support your goals. You still have to do the work, of course, but at least this will start you off with new stuff.

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A robot cleans my floors.

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thThis is an unsolicited, unreimbursed testimonial for the robotic vacuum cleaner known as the iRobot Roomba. When I first heard the words “robotic vacuum” years ago I made a rude noise with my lips. It sounded like a pricey toy more than a useful appliance.

But DF, that most frugal and practical of men, has owned one model or another for years. When I moved in with him I decided to learn how to use it.

And then I fell in love with a little self-propelled disc.

Roomba delights me when she’s not scaring me with just how much dust and crud she’s picked up on what looked like clean-enough floors. (Yes, our Roomba is female. She makes us think of the robot maid from “The Jetsons.”)

Given that I have asthma, it’s smart to keep the environment as dust-free as possible. But vacuuming frequently hasn’t generally been high on my to-do list, even though I knew it should have been.

Recently I realized my asthma attacks have all but disappeared since I came to live with DF. Initially I thought it was because I was so much happier. Now I think it’s mostly Roomba’s doing.

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Giveaway: “The Happiness of Pursuit.”

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happiness of pursuitAs others have pointed out, the Declaration of Independence doesn’t guarantee us happiness – merely its pursuit. Entrepreneur and author Chris Gillebeau has written a book that uses numerous (and varied!) bliss treks to illustrate how we might seek our own personal definitions of fulfillment.

“The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life” is based on the author’s own personal challenge (to visit all the countries of the world before age 35) and also on the fascinating endgames sought by others.

These aren’t famous people with deep pockets and a need to tell the universe how great they are. Instead, Guillebeau chose “ordinary people working toward extraordinary goals.”

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Unfamiliar area code? It’s probably a scam.

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thUnless you’re really lucky you’ve probably gotten spam/scam calls, often robotic ones. The smart money is on refusing to pick up the phone if it displays an unfamiliar area code (especially a toll-free one).

But if you have friends or family in places like Detroit (313), Houston (713) or Fort Lauderdale (954), you might pick up.

Those three cities are three of the top 10 area codes used by spam callers, according to a company called Whitepages. The others are:

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What does it take to retire successfully?

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20140909-MoneyTips-Fincon-The retiree-screen Res (FINAL)Where I grew up, people worked for as long as possible and felt diminished by retirement. Now it’s seen as a second chance.

Some people still say they plan to spend their golden years improving their golf swings or lying around in hammocks, but increasingly retirement is becoming an opportunity to start over: trying a different type of work, learning a new skill, maybe even running off to join the Peace Corps.

If you’d like to learn more, tune in to the Retiree Next Door Tweetcast next Tuesday, Nov. 18. Co-hosted by MoneyTips.com and certified financial planner Jeff Rose, the one-hour event will answer common questions and any additional queries sent in by listeners.

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