Amusing ourselves to debt death
Monday night hot dates with dead intellectuals (from 1985)
Amusing ourselves to
Aurora borealis
Two nights ago the Northern Lights were out in full force. The Eldest and I headed outside (The Youngest wanted to sleep because she gets up early for Art School) and we OOOHed and AWWed in the dark of the backyard. It also helps that we are near the Greenbelt and we back onto a park. Mr. Tucker took these photos because my phone is an iPhone 8 which may as well be a rotary phone in 2025 (if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it is my motto!).
You can see the big dipper quite clearly here
Your Thrift Habits (1948)
The basics never change
Goodbye spendy summer, hello frugal fall
Morning of the last dragon boat festival of the year
We’re heading into Autumn and we kissed the summer goodbye at an End of Summer bonfire & BBQ party on the Mississippi River (no, not that one) this past weekend. It was a classic Canadian fall day where you leave the house bundled up in a sweater because of the chill and then by 2pm you’re boiling hot and the sun is beating down on you. Then as soon as dinnertime hits, it’s cold and dewy again. A friend from dragon boat hosted a lovely afternoon at her house and it was nice to be outside on what will probably be one of the last warm days of the season.
Em-eye-ess-ess-eye-ess-ess-eye-pee-pee-eye
Dragon boat ended the last week of August, another season under my belt. It’s just as well: the kids were back in school the following Monday so over the long weekend we tried to get as many lingering “big” chores done as we could. Like many folks, this included cleaning out the garage and selling or giving away a few things that we no longer use. Since many people use this weekend to clean out their garages, enough folks were driving around scouring the neighbourhood for free stuff that we didn’t have to haul a lot to the dump. WIN/WIN.
Summers tend to be lackadaisical here at The Mullet. We don’t tend to eat together, we all have different activities, different schedules and different sleep patterns. The week before school starts we tend to tighten it back up slowly by meal prepping, organizing school supplies (and buying only what is needed), doing more baking for lunches, and getting to bed before midnight. The summer is also for random visits to the ice cream parlour, hot dates on patios, overspending at events, hitting the local microbreweries & food trucks, and hosting parties. It tends to be a very spendy time of year but I don’t think about it much. But the end of summer also marks the tightening of the budget.
These Ground Cherries went into into an amazing spice cake
This year we’ve been hit by a bunch of random expenses (which honestly, aren’t random at all). I have to pay quarterly taxes this year because it makes more sense for Mr. Tucker to claim most of the tax credits. The pool heater died 3 months after the warranty was up. We redid the floors in the condo, the car needed some work, we had to buy a new dishwasher (and pay a plumber to install it, we tried but the pipe needed to be cut down), and of course our car insurance doubled because The Eldest is now driving. When I say random, what I really mean is that I always have money tucked away for emergencies or for planned spending but a lot came at us at once so the accounts are on the low side. It happens.
But I also know I will feel better if I watch my spending for a bit. The kids have their own budgets to manage and I just will be a bit tighter with my discretionary spending for awhile. I have a trip planned with some girlfriends in November *and* I am throwing myself a 50th birthday bash a week later, so a lot of my discretionary spending over the next two months will go towards those two things. I find our spending ebbs and flows during the course of the year and I get more or less spendy depending on the weather.
A friend’s 50th birthday! There are a few of us this year
Now that fall has ushered itself in, so has my desire to stay close to home. It’s just as well, our garden is overflowing with peppers, tomatoes and herbs and it’s about to get busy with the processing for winter. Tonight I fire roasted some tomatoes, made a salsa and then I crushed & froze 2 litres of tomatoes for future meals. More tomatoes are ripening and I’d like to get some sun dried tomatoes done before the frost comes. We usually get bulk apples (does anything represent September more than the humble apple?) from a friend but it looks like her family is retiring from the apple biz, so I will have to hit the farm stand up the road to get some fresh apples. I like to chop a bunch up & dehydrate some for winter…and of course we eat a pile of them because they’re so good this time of year.
I am probably one of the few people who know their family eats 10lbs of fresh garlic in a year
Other than that, it’s helping the kids get organized for school & activities. The Youngest is doing her snowboard instructor training this year as well as volunteering at the library. She recently discovered that she can read books and write reviews on them in exchange for volunteer hours and so she’s over the moon! She came home from the last volunteer meeting with a giant pile so it looks like she will tackle that. The Eldest and I are still hammering out what courses she needs for university. It’s been a stressful and chaotic beginning to the school year because it feels so *dire* to be choosing what classes to take for her last year of high school in order to get into the programs/schools she wants. I’ve told the kids that nothing is set in stone and that life has many do-overs but it’s still stressful for a 17-year-old to try and figure out a path for a career she wants to spend 3-5 years in school for! She can always switch majors but I get it – it’s a lot.
The last BAC show of the season. Next year is MEH so we will be skipping
Labour day also marked one of the happiest changes of the season: it’s video game time again! I quit playing games from May to September because I like to be outside more. It’s just a good way to prevent myself from staying inside and being a mushroom with thumbs. I know that I am late to the party but I am still working on The Witcher 3. Will I finish before The Witcher 4 comes out? Stay tuned! I’d also like to play Cyberpunk this winter, it’s just sitting there on my Steam account taunting me. I don’t tend to watch a lot of tv & movies generally but in the summer it drops to zero. Still, I have a few shows to watch – like the last season of Taskmaster – which will keep me company now that sitting outside is less of an option.
I guess that’s what makes it a frugal fall: video games, tv and food preservation. But mainly, it’s staying close to home & having fewer social events as the cold weather hits. By next month Canadians realize that life doesn’t stop for weather and the transition back into social events will begin in time for spooky season.
BBC documentary: Throw it Away!
A 1964 video about conspicuous consumption and disposable culture
Finland: the happiest country
“…Finnish happiness has nothing to do with how jolly they may or may not be as a people. “It has less to do with how ‘ha ha, smiling, happy’ people are, and more to do with: There’s less reason to be unhappy in Finland than any place else. You can think about all the things that can make people unhappy, and Finland has less of them,” he said. He talked about how his children are safe from gun violence, the sacredness of personal time, the knowledge that if he and [his wife] became sick, or couldn’t pay the mortgage, or lost their house, there would be a social safety net there to catch them. “Everyone takes care of everyone else, to some extent,” he said.
Given all this, I expected David to tell me frankly that, no, it’s not possible to “learn to be happy” like a Finnish person, because it’s about what society offers you. That’s not what he said. “It’s also about an acceptance of what you’ve got, and being grateful for it,” he told me. You absolutely could learn.”
JOMO
By the artist Leunig
It’s a cruel, cruel summer
Well, I made it to Canada Day and we had a lovely BBQ and pool party with friends. It was the grand finale of a super busy period of our lives. Afterwards, we settled into a more chill summer vibe with The Eldest biking to her summer job everyday and hanging out with friends when she wasn’t working and The Youngest doing camp and hanging with friends when she wasn’t at camp. Mr. Tucker started biking to Muay Thai & I paddled twice a week leading up to the dragonboat festival in June (we won second place for the 200m in our category, thank you very much!). But life is not all roses and there was a horrible loss of one of The Youngest friend’s on the second-last day of school & it has cast a shadow over the summer as she works through the emotions that come with losing a friend.
I got overly-excited about an add-on for my CSA that added locally grown berries to our weekly order that I chose the largest sizes possible. I have made SO MUCH jam and have frozen SO MANY berries! Future me will appreciate it in the dead of winter when I can whip up some berry muffins with this summer’s berries. But today me sure cursed myself as I chopped fruit up and sterilized multiple jars.
July saw Mr. Tucker take two weeks off of paid work…to do work at home. We continue to clean out the dusty corners, repaint, organize and decorate the house in a more permanent way. While I felt increasingly unwell and exhausted, he got to work cleaning out closets, selling and donating things that we haven’t used or things the kids have outgrown. We also hosted a craft night for a friend’s birthday.
Sadly, the thing that was sapping me of my energy also landed me in the Emergency Room by the end of the month. Four hours later I was in surgery and I go back in on September 2nd for another surgical procedure (I am – for all intents and purposes – doing ok). I spent 4 days in the hospital covered in ice packs with a high fever that 1000mg of Tylenol (why don’t they just say 1 gram?) would barely touch. It was truly awful. The way I was raised guarantees that I will only go to the hospital when I am on death’s door. I gaslit myself so hard that it was all in my head that the doctors and nurses were horrified that I lived with so much pain for so long. I definitely was an absolute moron for not going sooner. Story of my life.
In August it was record wildfires and heatwaves. Friends stopped in to swim and escape the environmental catastrophe for a few hours. Judy[1] came up from California to visit & to do some recon (more on that at some point) and being able to see her and to have a fun swim party with the Cohens was an amazing way to catch up. Sadly, our tenant left on August 1st (but is paid until October). He was so great and I wish he had stayed longer. However, we will get the floors done in the condo and put it up for sale again hopefully by the end of the month. Cross all of your crossables that it sells quickly.
The Eldest passed her G2 driver test so now she can a> drive on her own, b> needs her own insurance. That little slice of heaven will cost more than what Mr. Tucker & I pay to insure both of us, together. We came to an agreement that she would pay part of her insurance (and any gas she uses) to get her used to the fact that car ownership is eye-wateringly expensive (this amount is proportional to her income as the point is to get her to appreciate and understand the responsibility, not to make her shoulder the exorbitant cost). She is only insured as a casual driver so I explained that she will rarely get the car but the idea is for her to build an insurance history so her rates go down. But, one at-fault accident and we pull the plug because her rates will double and that puts it out of the realm of affordability for us (and her – it would eat up 2/3rds of what she makes in a summer). She will continue to use the red and white limousine or her bicycle for most of her transportation needs.
The rest of the summer is all birthday parties and more dragon boat festivals.
We also headed to our local bike store to get tune-ups & to buy new helmets
…this is the bike store dog!
…and we had lunch dates
September is on our doorstep and the weather just turned from scorching to autumn this morning as the heatwave broke overnight. I woke up to some much-needed rain and when I got up I threw open all of the windows and the patio doors. The next couple of weeks will see the back-to-school chores begin: dental appointments, haircuts, and buying school supplies. The Eldest has a one week break between work and the start of the school year and we are going to spend it looking at post-secondary options so that she can redo her timetable if she needs to, depending on what programs she is looking at. She won’t be teaching skiing this winter, and instead will concentrate on school and getting her volunteer hours to graduate. I cannot believe she is already in grade 12. The days are long and the years are short, indeed.
[1]These are my Americans, get your own.
The Moving Past
This CBC article brought The Moving Past website to my attention today. Created by historian David Sobel, I didn’t know that Canada was the first country to have government sponsored films, nor did I realize that we lost so many of them during WWII when they were melted down for their silver nitrate. Here is a short video about the project:
I’ve watched a few today and I have to say that Sobel’s choice to speed up the videos and add music for modern audiences was a clever one. They are incredibly watchable morality plays addressing the issues Canada faced 100 years ago. I especially love the absolute panic of women being alone in the big city and …GASP…going dancing in 3-inch heels! Don’t worry though, those wanton women get punished by…tuberculosis? Which you get not from bacteria but from an unhealthy lifestyle. Choose carefully, ladies.
Overall, this site is a charming way to spend a couple of hours if you find yourself needing a break from the horrors.
I’m a Luddite (and so can you!)
New Escapologist turned me onto this comic by Tom Humbersome in The Nib. It’s about the history of Luddites and how it remains relevant today.
Have a gander on this sleepy Sunday (before you wake up tomorrow and have to do it all again).