Forgive? Forget? Naaaah.

Back in August, when my Uncle died, I wrote this post. That article obviously discussed my Uncle's passing, but it also had another topic, and I'm going to back up a bit and rehash that today.

My uncle lived in the same town where I grew up as a kid, so when he was in hospice, I was also visiting my hometown. I considered calling a select few people, but I only made one call... to Lisa. As I said in the last post, she hung up on me when I called her. To clarify, I called, she answered, and when I said "Hi," she instantly hung up the phone, without a word. On the off chance that she had been disconnected, I called again and the line was busy. I figured that I'd wait for a bit, just in case we had both tried to call each other and both ended up with a busy signal. After another ten to fifteen minutes, I tried again. This time, I didn't even have a chance to say "hi." The phone was simply picked up and immediately hung up again. The message was loud and clear. She had nothing to say to me. With that, I have washed my hands of her.

For the most part, I have to admit that I felt relief. As I said in my last post on this topic, we had a falling out of sorts. At least this brought some definitive end to things. I don't need the last word, I don't need any additional closure or anything like that. I am willing to accept that we are no longer friends, and I don't lose any sleep over it.

Fast-forward to yesterday, when I went to the mailbox and discovered a Christmas card from her, addressed to the entire family. I could certainly understand if she'd have sent a card to my kids. She's known them both since infancy, and they love their Leesee. I am a little flummoxed, and slightly irritated by this one. I really don't like the idea of getting a Christmas card from someone who's at best pretending to be my friend. It certainly hasn't changed my decision to let the relationship remain dead. It would require too much time and effort on my part to try to forgive and forget.

Why Is Life so Difficult?

Despite the title, I am not writing today about some trial or tribulation of my own. In fact, for the record, I will say that I'm content with my life. Today, I'm answering a question that I seem to have heard several times in passing over the last few days. Maybe it's a bunch of people who just happen to be whining at the same time... maybe it's the Winter Blues... maybe they're all experiencing a bona fide big problem at the same time... Regardless of how they all got here, a lot of people seem to be asking "Why is Life so Difficult?"

Well, I have a couple of answers. (Hmmm... imagine that... me claiming to have the answers!) As I say this though, remember a couple of things. I am NOT here to give you chicken soup for your bruised little soul, and I am NOT Dr. Phil, giving you a couple of little feel-good catchphrases that you can take home and transform your life. With that said, let me tell you why I think life is difficult.

My first explanation is a little philosophical, but it's pretty simple. You need to experience the bad to appreciate the good. Let's go to pretend land for a little bit, and use food as an analogy. Let's say that through your entire life, you've eaten nothing other than your favorite foods... pizza, ice cream, chocolate... whatever your favorite foods may be. By most people's standards -- you know, the ones who've had to suffer through life with nothing but brussels sprouts -- your life has been pretty good. But since you've experienced nothing but pizza, ice cream and chocolate, all you know is two things... first, you don't like ice cream, and second, your life is rather dull. The only way to truly appreciate the good things in your life is through a little bit of suffering.

The second explanation is a little more straight-forward. Just as physical pain is the body's way of saying that something is wrong, emotional strain is how your mind says that something's not right. Sometimes you have to just cope. Losing a loved one, for the sake of illustration, is similar to breaking a bone. It hurts like hell in the short term, but with a minimal amount of care, you heal and life goes on. Chronic stress -- think depression, unhealthy relationships, things like that -- is the mind's way of saying that something has to change permanently. Poor posture and ergonomics can bring on back pain and carpal tunnel syndrome. The only way to fix it is to make a permanent change in your lifestyle. Similarly, you need to take care of your emotional well-being, or you will end up with, well, repetitive stress injuries.

Like I said, this is an over-simplification. But maybe it will give a few people a little food for thought.

... A Little Remiss

My apologies to both of my regular readers for my lack of recent posting. I've been firmly rooted in 3d-land, and enjoying every minute of it. Okay, with the women-folk doing that mood swing thing lately, I haven't loved EVERY minute of it, but my point stands.

As I mentioned in my last post, I now have my girls full time, and that's required a bit of adjustment on my part. Add to this the fact that they've both got learner's permits, and you should start getting an overview of why I haven't been posting as much.

I'm also discovering that I have a bit of a green thumb. I inherited a few plants from my uncle's house after he died... a couple of dieffenbachia, a snake plant and one that I think it a peace lily. All of them were in rough shape when I received them, so they've all been re-potted, and I also took a couple of pups from the snake plant. I also bought a bromeliad last winter, and it gave me a pup, which I just transplanted into its own pot. And to top it off, a friend gave me a spider plant clipping, which I'm trying to get to take root.

Speaking of pups, one of my dogs isn't feeling well. Her nose is dry, she's absolutely pounding the water, and she's having a bit of a bladder control issue. I think it's a urinary tract infection. I will find out today.

And on top of this, it's Christmas time, so I need to get the tree up.

...A Long Time Coming

Today is a day I've anticipated for over seven years. When my ex-wife and I parted ways, she stayed in the area, and we shared custody of our children -- joint legal custody, and joint physical care. I had the kids every Monday, Wednesday, and every other weekend. She took the kids on Tuesday, Thursday and alternate weekends. In actuality, the kids spent significantly more time at my place. On the ex's days, they came over early the next morning to get ready for school here; they stayed here after school until she picked them up on her way home from work. She frequently asked me to take the kids on her evenings or weekends for one reason or another. My ex is leaving town today -- in fact, she's leaving the state -- and now I have the kids full time.

My ex has never hid the fact that she didn't like Iowa. She said this when we were together, and she's said this to the kids many times over the years. I guess that she's finally had enough, and she's moving to Texas to start a new life. She plans to see the kids monthly, and for a couple of extended visits during the year, so it's not like she's dumping the kids and skipping town. Fortunately, she seems to realize that it's in the kids' best interest to let the kids stay here, where they have a stable home, good schools, and an established network of friends. The kids seem to be okay with their mom moving away, so I guess it's a win to the fifth power. I say "fifth power" because everyone seems to be pleased with the new arrangement. The ex gets to move out of Iowa. The kids are happy that their mom is moving somewhere that she'll be happy, and my wife and I are incredibly pleased that we get the kids full time.

Investing in My Future

While I'm not a financial guru, I do know a bit about investing, stocks, commodities, debt and so forth. Like many people, I had a lot invested in my 401(k), and like most investors, I lost a lot when the market crapped out. The way I differed from most people was that the ONLY reason I lost so much, was because my timing was a little off. I had planned on reallocating my investments because I saw the writing on the wall, but I was a bit too slow. It was a hard lesson, but I'm not losing sleep over it, because a lot of people lost a lot more than I did. And until I actually start realizing any gains or losses from my investments, it's all theoretical money. Besides, I'm young enough that I'll have time to recover my losses... as long as I play it smart and don't get greedy.

Since the crash, I haven't really invested anything in my retirement. My current employer doesn't offer any retirement package, and my income is lower than it was when Wall Street went south. With this in mind, I have taken a different approach. While the market is effectively moving sideways, I am paying off debt. Paying off debt provides a guaranteed return on my investment (something that no stock, bond or commodity investment can do), and it has a higher rate of return when compared to anything except for gold.

I've thought about investing in gold, but I don't have enough disposable income to buy a single ounce, much less the large stash required to really make some money from gold's current trend. I know that there's a major bull market on the horizon, but I'm going to let my 401(k) handle that for the near future.

Silver, however, is kind of intriguing. It's got the intrinsic value that gold has (though on a far smaller scale), but it also has industrial uses. I may be able to pick up a bit of silver over time. Another thing I've noticed regarding precious metal investing is the lackluster performance of platinum and palladium. Platinum generally runs several times what gold costs, but recently gold has taken off to such an extent that it's very close to the price of platinum. This ratio can't stay the way it is forever. Either gold will have to drop or platinum will have to skyrocket too. Palladium is in the same boat. It generally trades somewhat less than gold (50%??), but like platinum, its value hasn't appreciated much. This kind of makes sense. Palladium is a main ingredient in catalytic converters in cars, and face it, cars aren't selling like hotcakes lately. But again, at some point, palladium needs to take off. Silver seems to be starting to catch the coattails of gold, and it may be worth it to pick up some "poor man's gold" in the future. But for now, the way I'm going to invest is with a guaranteed return... pay off my debt.

Now, if only my government would follow my lead...

I'm Kinda Proud of This One

What you see in this picture is a pair of earrings. There is one other pair that's similar to them, but these pieces of jewelry are very unique, and each of my daughters has a pair.

You may wonder what's so special about them. On the surface, they look like simple gold earrings. Well, I'll tell you, there's a bit more to these earrings than meets the eye. These earrings, which I gave to my girls this morning, are made from the wedding ring I wore when I was married to their mother.

When I divorced their mom, I didn't throw away the ring. My decision to keep the band wasn't out of some deep-seated belief that we'd one day end up back together, nor was it strictly financial. I figured that one day, I'd hand it down to the kids. As time passed, I kept wondering how I was going to pass one ring to two children. This, coupled with the fact that my kids were young when their mom and I divorced, is why the ring stayed in my possession.

More time passed... the kids got a bit older... and I forgot about the ring. Every now and again, I'd run across it, which would get me thinking about how I was going to pass it to the kids. Eventually, I came up with two possibilities. One was to get the ring cut in half, flatten out each half, and make pendants out of them. The earrings were the second idea, an idea which didn't come until much later. Recently, the inspiration, opportunity and inclination to get this done all came together.

I spoke to an acquaintance of mine who is a master jeweler. He said that due to the pattern, the gold would probably crack if we tried to flatten it out, so we went with the earrings for practical reasons. There was an inscription on the back of the ring, and I asked the jeweler to preserve the inscription if possible. The inscription was preserved, and is on the back of two out of the four earrings, each daughter having one earring bearing part of the inscription.

I've showed these earrings to a few people, and the reaction has been incredibly consistent. I'd show them, and people would give me the "Those are nice" response, at which time I'd tell the aforementioned story. You could see the light bulbs go on as they understood the full significance, and their "Those are nice" responses, would become "Ooooooh.... that's COOL" responses.

Yeah, I'm kind of proud of this.

All Growed Up

My older daughter turned 18 this morning.