Chookah

The Paperless Office

I have paper.  I have a LOT of paper.  In my effort to de-clutter and de-junk my life I've decided that getting rid of all of this paper is in my best interest.

To that end, I purchased a scanner and am in the process of scanning all of my personal documents.  Divorce documents, taxes, checking statements, utility bills, notes, articles from old magazines, old forms, the works. Did I mention that it's a lot of paper?

It's a daunting task to look at 6 banker's boxes full of paper and realize how much time and effort it's going to to take to scan all of this crap.  I could pay someone to do it all but what's the fun in that?  I'd rather add to the drama of my life and scan every single document.

I'm taking it one piece of paper at a time.  A little every single day.  Thus far I've scanned most of the documents from my divorce - no small feat and have moved on to my taxes.

It's a pain in the butt, but at the end of the day it's 6 boxes of crap I don't have to deal with.

Now I need to buy a shredder and work diligently to not overload it and burn out the motor - like I did with the last one.  oops.

"I want that"

The downside to watching regular television (including Animal Planet) are the commercials.  It's doubly-bad when we can't fast forward through the commercials with the trusty TiVo.

It was cute for a while when Sebastian would exclaim, "I want that, the purple one," and point to the Mr. Clean commercial.  I'm more than happy to fulfill this particular capitalistic desire as long as he gets a sponge and a bucket to go along with it.

Now that we're in Christmas consumerism overdrive and many retailers are pushing for early holiday sales (before everyone loses their jobs, houses and gas jumps to over $4/gal.) the sheer volume of commercials pimping the latest and greatest toys are overwhelming.

"I want that."

"I want that."

I'm trying to look at the bright side in that these commercials give me ideas for birthday and Christmas presents.  I have to keep reminding myself that more Elmo videos aren't going to cut it and play-dough, while still a treasured favorite, is getting pushed to the side in favor of Transformers and Tinkertoys.

That said, I'm accumulating a list of "wants" for Birthday and Christmas gift ideas.  On the left-hand side of this blog you'll see an Amazon wish list which contains the items Sebastian has been clamoring for.

I'm not advocating that items should be purchased from Amazon, this list is merely a service in your search for the gift to beat all gifts.

Democracy

I had a reality check today.

Parenting is not a democracy.  It's a benevolent dictatorship.

Over the last couple of weeks I've let Sebastian walk all over me.  I've over-extended my "renewed" vigor for parenting and taken it to the extreme end of the continuum.  You want more candy? Okay, only 5 more pieces.  You don't want to finish your dinner? You can have a snack later.

Unfortunately, this has translated into bad behavior at school and arguments at home.

Sebastian is a good kid, he really is.  I just need to reign him (and me) back into the structure fitting for a three-year old.

I need to get back into the Dog Whisperer mode of parenting.  Cesar Milan has something going on when he says, "you need to set rules, boundaries and limitations," and exerting "calm, assertive energy."

Yes, I am making a correlation between parenting and dog training and no, Sebastian doesn't sleep in a kennel... yet.

Life is too short...

Life is too short to be unhappy or to compromise the relationship I have with my child.

To that end, I've made some changes in my life.  I've chosen an option and am moving forward.

I quit my 9-5 job in favor of self-employment.  Now many of you are thinking, "If you're making significant life changes, you may want to think about getting into rehab and stop smoking crack.  You quit your job?  You are most certainly deranged or addicted to some illegal substance."

6 months ago I would have most certainly agreed with you.

I've done a lot of soul searching and have come to the conclusion that self-employment will offer me the challenges, different personalities, opportunity to take my career in a new direction, advance and broaden my skills and most importantly, become a parent who's "present".

No matter how I make money to support my family and household the most important job I'll ever have is Mother.  I can't and won't sacrifice my child for the sake of money.  I can always make more money, I can't re-do Sebastian's childhood.

My goal is to be able to pick Sebastian up from school, go to soccer practice and games, volunteer at his school and just spend time with him.  I firmly believe that if I establish a solid, quality relationship with him now that it's going to benefit him when he gets older and hopefully influences him enough that he won't get into too much trouble as a teenager and will become a productive, ethical adult with solid values and principles.  Dropping him off at school at 7:30 and picking him up at 5:30 wasn't cutting the mustard for me.  I felt that I was missing out on a lot of his life and that was causing me a lot of stress and grief.

It's going to be a significant financial hit for our house.  That planned vacation is either going to get scaled down considerably or put on hold.  Retirement?  It's on hold for a little while. College fund?  Due to unforeseen financial impacts over the last 2.5 years a college fund isn't even in place.

It's going to be a change in mentality for me.  My self-motivation is going to need a shot of adrenaline as I'm the one generating the work and doing the work.  There's no one else to fall back on.  Health insurance?  Jesus.  I'm going to have to stay healthy because private health insurance is a HUGE hit to the pocketbook. Time to stock up on those vitamins.

Scary?  Considering that I'm the sole support for the house, yeah.  It's scary but the excitement and enhancing my relationship with Sebastian FAR outweighs the fear.  Things have a way of falling into place and this path feels like the right one to take at this point in my life.