Tag: Family

  • Current Mood: Snowman

  • A Pivot

    Well, Christmas didn’t exactly go as planned.

    We planned to travel to go see family in Kansas City and Nebraska for the next ten days.

    Yesterday, we made it as far as Oneonta, Alabama before we decided we should stop at an urgent care for Covid, flu, and strep for Porter because he had a sore throat and no one we were going to visit needed to be exposed to sickness.

    Sure enough, Porter has strep. So, back home we went. Interesting 5 hour drive at least. And I’m glad we found out before we made it all the way to Memphis, which had been our original plan for seeking out an urgent care. The drive back from Alabama was much shorter than the original idea.

    Still, Christmas plans being thwarted is rarely the end of the world.

    Today we slept in and Jared and I went to Costco and Trader Joe’s for goodies. And boy, we did come home with goodies.

    And then tonight, after a predictable meltdown, I returned to creative brainstorming. Because: the gear puzzles in my brain will not stop turning. My brain naturally turns to creative problem-solving when left to its own devices, and my photography gear has been a problem for the last six months.

    When I sold off the second Fuji GFX 50sII and several lenses, and purchased the Fuji X-S20 and started contemplating moving more seriously back to the X series ecosystem, I hit a major creative wall when the first attempt to adapt the Cinelux 37.5mm lens to the X-S20 failed.

    It’s a technicality: When I originally cobbled together the adapter, I could not find a M65 to X Series adapter. I had no idea there was actually a company making them.

    So instead, I bought a M65 to M42 step down lens filter ring, and an M42 to FX adapter.

    And, I proceeded to have a massive meltdown when the lens wouldn’t focus on the X-S20 because the focal point was closer to the sensor than my lens could get. And I gave up, assuming the 37.5mm would only work on the GFX forever.

    However: there is a company making these adapters, and I have one on the way now.

    Which means, my dream of making my GFX be an exclusively monochrome camera while the X-S20 is the color version, shooting Cinelux lenses simultaneously……well, that dream is alive again.

    In my brainstorming, I have also realized exactly how stunted my creativity has been most of the late summer and Fall.

    And I know why that is, and I take it as a very good sign that my creativity is returning. Even if it is only taking the form of creative problem solving thus far, it makes me extremely happy to realize that maybe I am making substantive progress to leaving the past in the past.

    Even if the meltdowns have not completely stopped just yet. The meltdowns may never stop completely; it occurred to me that they may actually be a symptom of the PTSD. But today, I recovered enough to get excited about my art again and that is enough.

  • True Blue Miracle

    Every once in a while on Facebook, I post “Current Mood” and just post a link to a YouTube video of a favorite song.

    This time of year, it’s often a Christmas song.

    This song from this episode of “Sesame Street” was one of my favorites growing up– I cannot tell you how many times I watched this episode when I was little.

    ‘Tis the season, y’all.

    Side note: The Carrollton Trojans play in the state playoffs at Mercedez-Benz Stadium tonight. We’re going to win!!

    Oliver is very excited because he has been invited to hang out with the broadcast kids and they are going to get a behind-the-scenes tour of GPB’s broadcast setup.

    Liam is traveling with the band, and Porter is coming along as well.

    Go Trojans!!

  • budget optimizations


    I have been on a rampage the last few months, trying to optimize our family budget as best we can.

    First, it started last May, when I closed my original photography business. I sold my second Fujifilm GF50sII body, and 4 of my GF lenses when I no longer needed them for business purposes. I did purchase a Fuji X-S20 with its kit lens so that I would have a second camera, but we still cleared a significant amount with the transactions.

    At the same time, I made a commitment, both internally to myself and also to my husband, to be entirely mindful of all of my spending. Historically, mindless spending when I am depressed or anxious has been a problem.

    Between May and September, that was the primary focus of my energy.

    In September, I decided we were done with the credit card rollercoaster. We’d previously had a personal loan that had a higher than optimal interest rate, at 11.25%, and we also had some minor credit card debt. We were offered and secured a different personal loan with a 7.99% interest rate, and rolled the minor credit card debt and the original personal loan into this 7.99% fixed personal loan.

    At some point in October or November, I called and asked about better deals for our internet only at home– we don’t have a home phone or cable service, we pay for internet only. I lowered our monthly bill from $79.99 to $65 and at the same time, I also secured us a better tier of service.

    Grocery-wise, we primarily shop at Aldi, Walmart, and Costco, with the bulk of our groceries coming from Costco. I have started paying attention to what is on sale weekly at Costco, and buying in bulk where it makes sense to do so. That has made a difference since I began doing this in October– last month we spent $400 less than the month prior, and we are on track to do the same thing this month as well.

    Then in early November, I started wondering if we could refinance our second mortgage…..its interest rate was secured when our credit was not as good, and its interest rate was 10.36%. At the same time, we had a home improvement loan for crawlspace encapsulation that was not only a 9.99% loan, it was a 15-year loan with 13.5 years left. So I looked around, and I found us a 7.625% second mortgage to roll the original second mortgage plus the home improvement loan into, and it is a 10-year term. We will save $14,000 over the life of the loan over what we were paying on the original two loans. (Our primary mortgage rate is 2.875% and thankfully the second mortgage is very minor by comparison).

    In deciding to open a new luxury photography business, I had to be extremely strategic in which expenses were non-negotiable. Ultimately, the LLC and occupational tax certificates were an “of course.” I also ensured my state sales and use tax certificate was put in place, and I re-opened a business checking account with Bluevine that has no monthly service fee at all. And finally, I secured a great deal on fairly comprehensive business insurance with Full Frame Insurance. The beautiful thing for my budget is that the photography gear I already had– and the fact that my primary Cinelux lens works on both of my existing cameras– is all I need to create beautiful luxury portraits.

    And finally, in this last week, I have managed to secure loyalty discounts and upgrades of 3 of the 4 phone devices in our household such that the upgrade cost us $174.30 in taxes, but I got upgrade and trade in fees waived, new devices included with payment of the plans, and payoff on my old phone all included. And with the loyalty discount in place that I was offered, our monthly phone bill for 4 lines will go down from $238 a month to $137 a month.

    So now, our highest interest rate on debt at all is 7.99% across all debt, and it truly does feel like our budget is as optimized as possible, given the circumstances we have created for ourselves.

    And as I make a renewed commitment to my artistic photography, all of this budget optimization frees up considerable brain space for concentration on what I truly love: my art.

    Read more about me here.