Growing Up and Moving On

This afternoon I went to Maura’s school for my very last Field Day lunch with my daughter. Every year since she was in kindergarten I’ve gone to school on Field Day to sit with her and have a hotdog. This will be the last year. Fourth grade is the final year of primary school in Weymouth. Next year she’ll be at Abigail Adams Middle School. I don’t know that they have a field day but I suspect if they do they don’t invite the parents to lunch.

Maura and I are both looking forward to middle school. The school is closer and Maura is older so she’ll be walking herself to school next year. She’s already made plans to walk with some of her friends. I’ll have more time because I won’t have to drop her off or pick her up. The school day is also more convenient for me. I’ll be able to get started sooner and I won’t be forced to take breaks at awkward times. Change is always disruptive but my life will be easier once I am used to the new schedule.

Though I’ll be happy when Maura is in middle school the end of primary school is a bittersweet time. Maura is growing up and it is happening fast. It seems like yesterday that she was starting school for the first time. Maura had just turned five a week before when we took her for her first day of kindergarten. She was eager to get started but also a little scared. Her mother and I felt the same way. Now in just over a week I’ll be dropping her off at Seach School for her last day as a student there. It hardly seems like it’s been five years.

Along the way Maura has learned a lot. She’s quite accomplished at reading, writing and arithmetic. She does her homework with little prompting (she still needs to be reminded to do her chores). She calls her friends on the phone and has an email address. Before she heads to middle school we will get her a cellphone of her own. Five years ago all of that was in the future. I can hardly imagine what the next five years will bring.

Happy Spring!

It was still officially winter last Sunday but it wasn’t obvious from the weather which was nearly perfect. Sunday afternoon the temperature was near 70 degrees Fahrenheit with few clouds and a light breeze. It was a day to be out of doors.

When our Sunday morning activities were over we took the opportunity provided by the perfect weather to get out for a hike. We went to the Moose Hill Audubon Sanctuary, in Sharon, Massachusetts. We were joined by our friends Mike and Becca and the younger members of their household, who live in Sharon and had invited us for dinner afterwards.

Our hike took us through the varied terrain of the sanctuary, through upland forest and boggy bottoms, by open fields and past ponds and vernal pools. With three active children (Maura and Becca’s two boys) plus a baby in a stroller, there wasn’t much wildlife to see or hear but it was still a pleasant walk. I tried out trekking poles for the first time in the hope that they would save my knees which have been hurting after long walks. I had received them as a Christmas gift but did no hiking during the winter. They either worked or the walk was not long or rugged enough to cause a problem with my knees. I did find that my arms and shoulders were tired after the hike.

I didn’t see any wildlife except for chickadees and crows, which are everywhere and unafraid of noisy children, but we did hear frogs as we walked by the vernal pools. They were likewise undisturbed by children and loud enough that they could have been heard over a dozen kids. I could only identify the spring peepers but there were also lower notes of another species of frog also breeding in the vernal pools.

The fine weather continues this week. I may go hiking again on my own but even if I don’t I’ll take the opportunity to walk around town. At the very least I will dodge traffic and skirt construction to walk to Maura’s school at dismissal and come back with her in tow. We both enjoy the outdoor exercise and the time together. Suburban sidewalks are not as pleasant a place to walk as wildlife sanctuaries but they are still much better than a stuffy house on the finest days in the early spring.

Further Adventures in Frugality

I’ve now been unemployed since the middle of May and the things we do to save money are now routine. Being careful with leftovers and saving vegetable scraps and chicken carcasses to make soup no longer seem like heroic measures but more like standard procedure. I doubt I’ll make many changes in the way I shop and cook once I have an income again. I’ll certainly keep making homemade chicken and vegetable broth no matter what happens. They’ve become too much a part of my cooking. I use them in many dishes that I make and they have more flavor and probably more nutrition than what I used to buy at the grocery store.

We’re still trying to economize on transportation as well. At the end of last year we traded in both our cars on one newer one. One of our cars was a gas guzzler and was rarely driven. Because it was seldom used it seemed like every time we started the engine it needed a new repair. Our other vehicle was a reliable Toyota but its clutch was starting to fail. We took advantage of an end-of-the-year deal to get a good price on a newer Toyota, trading in unpredictable maintenance costs for a very predictable monthly payment. We can get by with only one vehicle because Jennifer commutes by public transportation. I would do the same if I worked in Boston.

One thing I haven’t been able to do this school year is walk Maura home from school in the afternoons. A few weeks after the school year began work started on a major intersection we have to pass through to get to school. The sidewalks are still torn up on all four corners of the intersection. For months it wasn’t even possible to detour through the adjacent parking lots. At least that is possible now. I may start walking again when the weather warms up whether they complete the job soon or not. I rather doubt that they will. After the end of the school year it will no longer matter. Maura will be moving to middle school next year. It’s closer to our house and in the opposite direction.

I have good news on the job front. The long siege may soon be over. At the same time I was starting classes to learn new job skills I got a lead on a job I can start right away. It’s a paid writing gig, the kind of work I’ve been looking for all along, until now without success. The details are still being worked out but I hope to be working by the end of the week. It will be a new adventure for me to be actually being paid for the job that heads my resume and graces my business cards.

Adventures in Frugality, Part 1

Recently I learned that I will soon be losing my job. It wasn’t a good job. I won’t miss the work much. I will miss the people I’ve been working with, some of them for more than nine years. I’ll miss the money too. Even though I haven’t been well paid, selling books has contributed to our household needs.
I’m confident that in time the money issues will work themselves out. I’ll sell some of my work or I’ll find another job. In the meantime my goal is to spend as little money as possible, to stretch what we have as far as possible. I intend to have a good time while I’m doing it. It’s time for adventures in frugality.

For a start, I plan on driving the car less. Gas is expensive these days and likely to get more expensive. I can’t afford to burn any if I can avoid it. I’ve started walking Maura to school again now that the snow has melted off of the sidewalks. The mornings are brisk but if the weather is clear the walks are still enjoyable. The birds are singing in the trees and the first flowers of spring are blooming. I also walk to the library often. I can use the exercise; the library is often a good place to work and its services are still free.

The dinner table is another place we’ll be enjoying frugality. I’m trying to find ways to make inexpensive meals that please my family. No one in our house is a vegetarian but no one is a determined carnivore either. Meatless meals have always been among our favorites and I plan on making more of them. Made from scratch, they should be healthy and cheap. The challenge is to be creative enough that no one gets bored. I have plenty of time for cooking most days and I enjoy being creative in the kitchen.

I also don’t want to waste anything I can use. We already make homemade stock out of our vegetable scraps and bones. In the past leftovers often went to waste but I’m going to try harder to make sure edible leftovers get eaten and scrap paper gets used again before it gets recycled.

Our need to be thrifty will probably keep us close to home this year but Maura and I are still planning some adventures that will start as soon as the weather allows. For a school project on animals Maura researched lemmings this year. One of the things she learned was that the Southern Bog Lemming lives right here in Massachusetts. We’re planning on being amateur naturalists and searching them out in their natural habitat. While we’re at it we’ll get to know some of the other animals and plants that inhabit our local bogs and fens. I’ll write more about hunting for lemmings when we’ve made our first expedition. With luck we’ll find them close to home but I expect it may be a project that takes a good part of the summer.

Spring Briefly

Spring came to Weymouth on Friday. It was early and is gone again already. Spring won’t be here to stay for at least another month. Still, Friday was sunny and warm and there had been enough nearly warm days in the previous two weeks to melt the snow from the sidewalks between home and Maura’s school. So for the first time since early December I walked to the school at the end of the day and Maura and I walked home.

I’d wanted to walk for weeks. I’d watched the ice on the sidewalks thin and melt away and the mountains of snow at each intersection and parking lot diminish to hills and then to nothing. When the sidewalks were finally clear enough to negotiate I came down with a terrible cold that kept me inside for four days, too sick to consider a three mile walk in the chilly, if not subfreezing air.

It was luck that the warmest day last week fell when I felt well enough to walk and cooped-up enough that I couldn’t stay in the house any longer, despite a stiff breeze that threatened to steal my hat. It was good to stretch my legs and good to spend some time with my daughter. Maura held my hand on the walk, though she doesn’t have to except at major street crossings. She doesn’t like wind and it gusted strongly enough Friday that I joked about tying a string to her and flying her like a kite. She’s getting so grown up now. She laughed at the joke. Last year she would have taken me seriously.

I’ve really missed the walking since winter started. I won't walk often for a while. Until spring is really here most days it will be uncomfortably cold and sometimes it will be icy. Still, Friday was a taste of what’s to come. I can only look forward to many pleasant walks to school and back, one way alone, the other with the best of company.