Sponsor me in the 2005 MS Walk! Why? Read here.
Ha! I guess I'm not surprised that my last entry spurred someone into an angry comment. I know what I must sound like to someone walking in, reading that, and walking away. And if money were no object in my house, I probably would have a better attitude about it.
But money *isn't* no object around here. And all of what we get, we need. For things like our mortgage and our utilities and the food that we eat and the diapers on Will's butt and the clothes that we wear and what we use to wash them. And to fix the Isuzu, which is back in the shop for the second time in less than a month, and which is ringing in at another $450 or so this time around. And to put toward the new furnace we're going to need before the winter is over because the one we have now is held together with duct tape, shoestrings, and prayer.
So right now, $50 shoes, $85 pants, $200 dresses and the like seem huge to me.
And I figure I'm better off saying all that in here and smiling and saying, "Of course" to Amy than I am telling Amy that she's crazy to expect me to spend $50 on dyeable shoes that will never, ever grace my feet again.
Because in the end, it's her wedding. And whatever she asks us to do for it (short of buying the $340 Brooks Brothers blazer), we're going to do, because she is my husband's sister, and we happily agreed to be part of her day.
Truthfully, I've found that the "money's only money" philosophy works in two occasions--one, when you have enough of it that you don't have to think about it, and two, when you know there's no way there will be enough so what difference does it make if you're $1000 in the hole or $1500 in the hole.
When you're at a place where you're just about even, and you can see the spot where you'll be out of the hole, you and money somehow don't part ways quite so easily.
On a completely different note...I read an article in Outside Magazine this morning about a woman who was almost killed in a bus accident in Thailand. Her injuries were so extensive (her intestines were in her shoulder) that her surviving to even get out of the bus was an incredible miracle. And yet, she managed to not only survive the crash and the immediate time period afterwards, but perservere through her recovery, while her doctors told her she would never walk again, and on her 40th birthday, two and a half years later, climb to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. It was an incredible story that made me cry a little bit (damn those hormones!).
I finished reading it and said to my mom, "this woman is incredible." I gave her the short version of what she'd overcome and admired her strength, courage, and faith. Then I said, "You know, if this woman can survive her bus crash, survive being eviscerated, survive the twenty-something surgeries she had to go through to be put back together AND not only recover, but prosper to the point where she was climbing mountains less than three years later--I can make it through the night without eating a cookie, don't you think?"
She shook her head. "I don't know, Jennifer. Those cookies taste awfully good."
Good to know we have our heads on straight.
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