We made the decision on Monday morning, just 2 days ago, to bring her in and say goodbye. She had stopped eating completely. When she lay on my chest that last night she looked at me and I could see the pain in her eyes. She could no longer walk very well and she hated the subcutaneous fluids. I still have a little bite mark on my chest to remember that by. Bangs was always a very assertive cat, some might say demanding… she always let me know when she wanted something.

I brought her home in June of 1990 when she was a kitten of about 6 weeks old. Her first act after arriving to her new home was to freak out at the sight of our 2 German Shepherds, Hannah and Lucy, who where in their pen at the time. She leaped out of my arms, throwing herself against the pen and then she ran off. We thought we’d never see her again. But she didn’t go far and came back shortly.

Because we lived on kind of a busy side street, I wanted her to be an indoor cat. She was very clear with me that that wasn’t going to work. She loved the outdoors. Because the dogs took up residence in the mud room (it truly was a mud room with those 2) by the back door, I couldn’t put a cat door there, so I opened a hole in the bedroom closet and put it there. She was free to come and go as she pleased. I learned from my neighbors that she was always careful crossing the street and they’d see her blocks away sometimes.

She was also really good at catching birds and mice. I got pretty good at catching birds after awhile because she enjoyed bringing them home for me. Once we heard noises coming out of our cupboard where we stored mugs and glasses only to find a small sparrow in there had shit on about every glass in the cupboard. Usually I was able to save them and send them on their way. Then there was the time she brought a rat into the house. Once she got it home she no longer cared about it. It took me 2 weeks to catch that rat.

When she wanted to look outside she learned to bat the narrow Venetian blinds with her paw and look at me. I trained her well, the blinds always got pulled up for her. In 2004, I moved about 3 hours south during the week for my job and Bangs came back and forth with me. She was a great traveling companion and loved her new fenced in back yard. I’d let her out there knowing by then that she couldn’t scale the fence. She loved it so much that in the early morning she’d bat the long vertical blinds on the sliding glass door in the bedroom and make an amazing racket. Those were times I did not let her have her way, but it never swayed her from trying.

And heat, this cat loved warmth. When she we lived in the first house, she’d sit on the registers on the hardwood floor and just meditate with the heat blowing up onto her. When we moved to the house I’m in now, she found comfort in front of the fireplace and in front of the registers on the wall. When we first moved in here, Sylvia cat was here. Sylvia liked to walk in the duct work and gave Bangs a good scare when she showed up face to face with her through the register. When we moved down to Vancouver, I had a gas fireplace. Once Bangs learned that all I needed to do was flip a switch to get the fire going, she’d just go sit there in front of the fireplace and look at me until I turned it on. Here at home, we’ve stocked up on 4 hour firelogs for years. She rarely went a night without a fire.

This past April our bathroom remodel was completed with a heated floor. She found a favorite spot to lie on it and I still expect to see her there when I go into the bathroom. She also loved laying outside in the sunshine and miraculously, we had a very long spring and summer this year. I really think it helped keep her alive a little longer because once it started getting cold and rainy, she really began slowing down.

Bangs was always very soft and cuddly. She loved being held and kissed on her soft little head. Her fur stayed soft and silky until the end, although in the last couple of years she couldn’t groom herself as well and I needed to comb out the mats more often.

As I write this, I realize that I can’t do justice to her long kittie life in a short blog post. There are so many stories I could tell. At some point I may go through her early pictures and scan them in and create a Bangs photo chronology. For now, writing this post, I am remembering her when she was healthy and alive. She began being treated for kidney disease in 2001 and held steady all these years. She was an amazing little girl with an unlimited store of love and charm and personality. There will never be another Bangs. I’m pretty sure that one day I’ll get another kitten and we’ll bond into a completely different relationship. And Camille, our 4 year old cat, is thankfully here full of love and warmth and spirit. She keeps looking for Bangs in all her usual places. This morning I saw her look behind the door in my office where the heating vent is.

For now, I’m imagining Bangs running with the birds and the butterflies, playing with Hannah and Lucy and Ferter and Sylvia, being carefree, joyful, and free with no more pain. I miss her like crazy still and wait for time to heal this emptiness as I know it will.

On Monday she went back in and spent 3 nights and 4 days on IV fluids. I brought her back home Thursday evening with her sub-Q fluids and plenty of needles. Her creatinine went down to 6, but not back to the steady 3 it had been holding at for months and months. Giving her the sub-Q fluids is not a big deal, but she’s eating very little and she’s not getting around very well. She can still make it up and down the stairs but she can’t jump up on the bed and she’s moving very slowly.

She’s still beautiful, alert, her fur is soft and dark (she’s a black and white kitty) and she purrs when I hold her. She’s sleeping wrapped in my arms at night and I can’t imagine losing her. I knew I’d have to face this day but damn if it doesn’t hurt worse than anything I can ever remember. She’s my best little buddy and she’s been with me consistently longer than anyone ever, even my family.

I’ve been building her fires, she loves the heat. But she wouldn’t even eat the chicken she loves so much last night from our dinner or the pork tonight. She used to sit by my chair and practically eat half my meal. Now she won’t even eat one piece.

It could be that the anemia caused by the kidney failure is contributing to a lot of this. Her kidney is very small, so I should probably be more amazed that she has lived this long. She really has lived longer than most cats and lord has she been loved. She received an injection of Aranesp (darbepoetin) on Wednesday. Because her kidneys are shutting down they can no longer manufacture the protein that aids in the production of red blood cells. Aranesp works by stimulating the production of red blood cells by the bone marrow. The anemia is most likely causing much of her lack of energy and appetite now. She’ll get another injection of it in 4 days.

I am rambling a bit here (or maybe a lot), this is a reflection of the way I feel about all this. Will the Aranesp help her energy to climb again and will the twice daily administration of sub-Q fluids with the extra potassium and b-12 vitamins help her come around? I don’t know yet. I go from having hope she’ll be with us another 6 months to feeling resigned to letting her go in the next couple of weeks.

To make matters more complicated, my partner and I have our yearly SE Asia trip planned (and paid for, we’ve been planning this for nearly a year). I barely want to go now. We have a housesitter who has taken very good care of Bangs and our other cat, Camille, over the past few years when we’ve gone away, but I wonder if she can take as good care as I can. Hell, maybe she can take better care now because I’m so freaked out and feeling so much grief. Bangs is my emotional litmus test, none of this is escaping her.

For now I need to take it one day at a time and let her call the shots. I can’t force her to eat, although I have a pantry full of new natural cat foods that I’m trying out on her. It’s helping her to eat a little bit anyway. When my grandmother was 99 and in a lot of pain, she wanted to stop eating. She died soon after that. My nearly 20 year old cat is probably around the same age in cat to human years. I’ll love her all I can until it’s time for me to let her go. And when she goes I’ll grieve her with all my heart, and I’ll always remember the most amazing special bond we’ve shared.

On March 4, 2009, Time published an article called Finding a Dream Job: A Little Chaos Theory Helps. What the article is really talking about is the element of risk or chaos in choosing a college degree these days. It used to be that a business or law degree was pretty much a guarantee of a good job and an English degree (which I have, by the way), wasn’t going to get you anywhere in this life, at least not in terms of a real job.

So back to chaos theory and your choice of a college degree.

In You Majored in What?: Mapping Your Path From Chaos to Career, Katharine Brooks, Ed.D., points out that the way we usually approach career-planning is logical and linear — i.e., “I majored in political science, so I’ll go to law school,” or “I studied history, so I’ll be a history teacher.” With the economy in shambles, though, what seems straightforward to students (or their parents) may not be. Searching out other less obvious options, always a smart strategy, matters more now than ever. Brooks borrows from mathematical chaos theory to help new grads map out a career plan that will ultimately get them where they really want to go.

The article goes on to say the same thing I’ve been hearing for probably the past 15 to 20 years or so of my work life, which I guess is much of it, that in the old days you expected to get a job with a good company and then stay there for 30 years and retire. So neat and clean. Those were really the old days, though, because I’m a baby boomer and I’ve changed careers about 3 times or so (if you count all the little jobs I took when I couldn’t find something in a chosen field). To the author’s credit, she follows up this line of thinking with “How quaint! Those days are never coming back.” Indeed.

Katharine Brooks has been studying the relationship between college degrees and actual careers for the past couple of decades. She has counseled many a “panicky” graduate that their careers may have little or nothing to do with what they learned in college and she’s created tools to help people make sense of where they’re strengths and interests lie. She says (and I so resonate with this),

“The saddest thing to me is seeing someone take a job just because it pays well, and then spend all that money on toys to cheer them up for being miserable in their job. People who are doing what they love hardly feel they’re working at all, just living.”

So, take heart in this age of no guarantees. Our dream jobs are out there. If you’re reading this, please comment with your own ideas about what your dream job is and if you’ve made it or not. Or write about what you went to college for and what you’re doing now. I’ll tell my own story in my next post.

Interesting, according to my spell check, the word “reimagine” does not exist, but it’s probably the biggest thing happening out there these days. Imagine being a woman in your 50’s with a skill set working in early childhood education and your job is gone? How do you take those skills and “reimagine” yourself doing something different?

Being unemployed is difficult on so many levels. The first one is that you’ve lost your income. The second one and possibly even the more devastating one is that you’ve lost your identity. The third is that you’ve lost your routine and the fourth is that you’ve lost the day to day camaraderie with the folks you used to work with. On a personal level, it’s all pretty devastating.

Having been unemployed for months on end myself in prior economic downturns, I can attest to this from a personal level. I remember spending hours (before the internet) calling around, taking classes, taking tests trying to figure out who I was in the world of work and sleeping late and feeling sorry for myself. I took jobs doing whatever I could to get back into the world of work, including working in a warehouse, being a prep cook and working as a janitor. Once I was working again, jobs in my chosen fields were offered and eventually I became employed in an entirely new career.

I also got caught up in make money quick rip offs and gave the little money in savings I had to very bad people who had no intention of helping me make money. With the help of others I was successful in putting one of those shysters behind bars. Today there are so many people ripping other people off in the name of making money online, it can feel very discouraging.

So, what’s this all about? And how do you keep your sanity during this period if you’re one of the 10% currently unemployed and going crazy trying to find work?

Here’s my list of what I’d do differently if I was unemployed today (instead of what I did when I was unemployed before).

1. Wake up in the morning and appreciate my life, my creativity, my cat, the roof over my head and the food that will sustain me that day.

2. Meditate for 10, 15 or 30 minutes.

3. Go out for a walk if you can. Just get out of the house for awhile. If you still have access to a gym, go and work out.

4. Make contact with a good friend or family member and just check in. Let them know how much you appreciate them. When you appreciate your friends, you appreciate yourself. This is so important.

4. Have a good nourishing breakfast, maybe with a friend.

5. Remind yourself to stay fully present in the present moment and do this whenever you feel like you’re sinking from the weight of being unemployed or worry sets in.

6. Do something creative like write, paint, play an instrument, sing or dance to some music in your living room. The point here is to keep remembering how amazing you are.

7. If you’re sending out resumes, send a few more out. Check in with your temp agencies if your looking for contract work.

8. Really think about what a perfect day would look like for you. If you’re so inclined, start a blog on a free site like wordpress.com or blogger.com and write about your experiences being unemployed or your experiences being a great mom to your cat or whatever makes you feel good. I know for myself I’ve gotten lost in the crazies about what to write about when really it’s right in front of me. For instance, when an old friend asked me for my lasagna recipe, it felt like nothing to write it all out in full detail.

9. Appreciate yourself some more. Remember that you’re a unique and amazing person with so many gifts and talents you are willing to offer. When you keep this in mind, you will find a match.

10. Because all lists should probably end on the number 10, here goes. Enjoy the time off. that’s the biggest regret I have for my periods of unemployment, is that I spent the time worrying and freaking out. You will be employed again or you will work for yourself or you will have obligations on your time in the future. Accept and appreciate the time you have now. In fact, cherish it with all your heart!

If you have something to add to my list, I’d love for you to please comment.

As I listen to the music you created, I wonder what I’ll leave. We’re all creative beings. I know you stressed about your music when you were alive and people didn’t appreciate it properly. Especially your father. So what else is new there, huh?

Paul Simon’s father thought he was an idiot, too, but I’m afraid on both counts they’re overridden.

My father isn’t here anymore, I’m not sure what he’d think of me these days. But that’s not what this post is about.

It’s about creativity and being who we really are.
What a concept…

Why is it that too many of us wait until we’re old (i.e. retired) to discover our creativity? And power to those who do! It’s sad to think that we’ll get into our 60s and 70s and beyond and do nothing but sit in front of the TV.

Creativity is expressed in lots of ways. It’s not just writing, visual arts and theatre. It’s athletics, it’s building things, it’s making candles or expertly pruning a white pine. Creativity is as endless as human imagination.

With all those choices, why are so many people stuck in front of the TV?

Hmmm, what about planning a really cool vacation somewhere, all on your own without the help of a travel agent. With so many resources on the web it’s really possible now to imagine and create anything you want.

And with so many resources on the web, it’s a plus minus situation. We can be creative and add to the mix, talk about the mix and rant about the mix, or we can get sucked in by the whole thing.

What’s real here? Nothing, really. But it’s fun to write about anyway. I’d love to hear how you express yourself creatively these days! What on earth would Mozart be up to if he were alive today?

Why is that, you say (if you’re even reading this)? Honestly, it’s that I’ve gotten twisted into an internet marketing vortex (ok, learning curve, if you will) that has taken me away from my “beginnings.”

It’s funny how amazingly fast time speeds by these days. Internet time is like the ultimate opposite of geologic time. I have this vague memory of reading about PPC and Clickbank back in 2004. Geez, 5 years ago? And then reading everything I could about affiliate marketing beginning a mere 4 years ago. And taking Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind course just a couple of years ago (or has it been 3)?

Yikes, am I becoming jaded or what? I’ve taken other courses since then and while I keep learning new stuff, my income has only risen, well, in geologic time increments. Which is to say, not much at all. Although I am starting to understand this game much better. Which is maybe why I’m becoming jaded.

And, of course in the meantime… the economy took a dive and people had to go back to work and put off their dreams of having the freedom to do something completely new and different. There’s something comforting about having a regular paycheck right now if you’re so lucky to have one.

If you’re not, well, I remember those days all too well in the early 80’s when I wasn’t working at all and freaking out about it the whole time, instead of enjoying myself, which is what I should have been doing. It’s not like I wasn’t enjoying myself at all, but I was spending way too much time worrying. And while I was spending all that time worrying, I had a roof over my head and I had plenty to eat. I had lots of friends and I even took guitar lessons. Shoot, I had all that time!

Guitar lessons now? I wish I had the time. Ok, if guitar lessons were really all that important to me I’d make the time.

But, instead I’m weighing the hours I work and the hours I spend getting backlinks. How crazy is that? It may be crazy, but the more I do it and the better I get at it, it gives me a different kind of joy. In the meantime, I wonder if I should just sell those damn guitars….

So what to make of all this? Probably not much more than the challenge of life and the human game goes on. And if I wrote this same blog post tomorrow, it would be different. Now there’s a challenge.

I have a wine cellar. We buy French Bordeaux futures, then wait for about a year to actually get them and then stick them on their side in the cellar for a few more years before actually drinking them. My transition to retirement feels a little like this right now. And, joyously, I’m actually having some fun thinking about this transition rather than feeling desperate that it’s not here yet!

My transition into retirement began about 3 or 4 years ago. Before then I didn’t think I’d ever stay at a job long enough to retire from it and I certainly never thought I’d have enough money to ever actually retire. But about 4 years ago, I started really getting into the idea of retirement because I was, well, 4 years away from my minimum retirement age and if everything fell into place, the age and the years would have made me eligible for an early retirement.

Well, fast forward those 4 years, here I am at the minimum retirement age, but, well, everything did not fall into place and early retirements being offered may well be a thing of the past. Hey, is it MY fault that I landed right into the whole baby boomer thing?

All kidding aside, this is a blessing in disguise as just about everything in my life up until now has been. I’m serious when I say that. Like a fine wine, I am laying on my side (well not all the time) waiting to ripen and flower. Ok, my money is laying on its side waiting to ripen and flower. I love that analogy.

And, thankfully and joyously, my job has, well transitioned into a place I really enjoy. I really love my job now. Sure, there are parts of it that I can do without, isn’t that true for most jobs? But as I’m enjoying the final years of working at this job, I know there is yet another transition into whatever I’ll do next after I leave this job and do something called retirement.

Popping the cork on that bottle should be pretty awesome.

The focus of this article is on helping you figure out how much money you need to make in your business in order to meet your goals.

What is your goal in starting this business?

• To be able to work for yourself, replacing your current job
• To enable you to work more flexibly so that you can take care of a child or a parent, or pursue avocational interests
• To provide something productive to do and a stream of income in your retirement
• To get rich quick

If you marked the last one, you are at the wrong website. Your own business may make you happy, it may support you and your family, but if you ever get rich from your own business, it will be slowly.

How much would I have to earn to replace my current salary?

When you consider how much you would need to make to replace your current salary, there are a number of things to consider.

First, remember that the money coming in isn’t all profit. It took money to bring in those first dollars – probably lots more than what you initially brought in. You had start-up costs, and you have continuing costs in running a business. The money that comes in is your gross. Once you subtract your business expenses, you have your net, or your profit. But even your profit isn’t money you can spend.

Once you have profits (the gross income from your business minus your expenses), you’ll need to start paying quarterly estimated taxes. These estimated taxes are the income taxes that were previously withheld from your paycheck and FICA, your social security and Medicare taxes. When you are an employee, your employer pays half of your FICA and Medicare tax and you pay the other half. But once you are self-employed, you have to pay all of it.

From your first dollar of profit, you owe FICA and Medicare (15%). You also will owe income taxes. While income tax rates are tiered, remember that your marginal tax rate is determined by the household income. So if you have income from other sources or if your spouse has income from other sources, you should probably estimate your marginal tax rate as 25%. Thus, 40% of your profits go to federal taxes. You will also have to consider state and local taxes.

Most people who are salaried workers have some kind of retirement sponsored by their employer. Often it is a 401k that you put money into which is invested for you retirement. Some employers also offer some match of what the employee contributes. For instance, you employer may allow you to contribute up to 10% of your income to the plan, and the employer may match one dollar for every two or four or five dollars you contribute. This money is tax-sheltered and is not taxed until you withdraw it. You do pay FICA and Medicare on the money you contribute, but not on your employer’s contributions.

As someone who is self employed, you can create your own retirement plan. There are two options. One is the SEP IRA, which allows you to contribute up to 20% of your net on a pre-tax basis, up to a maximum of $49,000 in 2009. The other is a SIMPLE IRA, which has a maximum contribution amount of $11,500 in 2009 ($14,000 for people over 50). The SIMPLE IRA contribution is not limited to a percentage of your net income.

An Example: For every $100 of net income to your business, you’ll pay $15 in FICA and Medicare and $25 in Federal income tax. This leaves $60.

But if you contribute to a SEP, you can contribute 20% of your net, $20 out of that $100. That changes your taxes, as this money is tax-sheltered. You do pay FICA and Medicare on the money, but not income tax. So your quarterly taxes would take 15% of $100 ($15) and 25% of $80 ($20). So out of the $100, you’ll find you have $45 that is yours after taxes and your retirement contribution. When you contribute $20 to your retirement plan, and it costs you $15 because of the tax advantage of contributing to a retirement account.

Remember also that being self-employed means no paid vacation, no sick leave. You need to have reserves, money you save out of your profits to allow for this.

Health insurance is also a consideration. Your employer likely pays a significant amount go your health insurance premium. Now you will be paying your whole health insurance premium.

You do get some tax breaks. You get a tax deduction for half of the amount you pay for FICA and Medicare. You also get a tax deduction on half of the health insurance premium you pay.

Do I need to replace my salary?

If, at this point, you are looking at the numbers and thinking there is no way I can replace my salary, consider whether you need to replace your salary.

Many people start their own business as a transition to retirement from their old job. In this case, you are not aiming to replace your salary but to augment your retirement income to bring closer to your old salary.

Also consider whether you can live on less money. Working for yourself is often a lifestyle decision. Being self-employed can give you more flexibility about when and how and where you work. You may be willing to make less money to have the advantage of, say, no long commute or being able to see your children off to school in the morning or to take your mother to the doctor in the middle of the day.

If you believe you can live on less money, try it – not just for a month but for a full year. Not only will this tell you whether you can realistically live happily on less money, but if you save the difference between living on less and spending what you previously did, you’ll have some money saved for starting your business.

Remember that no one starts out replacing his or her salary. The rule of thumb is that it takes 2 years to make money in your own business. “Making money” means different things to different people, but most people take this to mean nearly replacing their salary.

Starting your own business is a good example of the old adage that “it takes money to make money.”

This discussion of the finances of starting your own business is not meant to be comprehensive, but simply food for thought.

What is it you want to do? How do you choose? For some people, a business idea grows out of a passion or a long-time interest. For others, a business idea grows out of the necessity of supporting themselves and their family.

There are many resources to help you draw up a business plan and learn the practicalities of starting a business. Research the business you want to start. The Small Business Administration has people to help you develop your business plan, to ask questions you may not of thought about. Who do you know who has started a small business somewhat like what you want to start? Talk with them, ask questions, and ask them what you haven’t considered in your plan.

To start your own business, you’ll need two kinds of money: Seed money for your start-up costs and money to live on while the business gets up and running. The general rule of thumb is that it takes two years in a new business before one earns enough money to be self-supporting. So what do you do between now and then? For most people, continuing their current job as long as possible before quitting to manage their business full-time makes sense. That means they need to come up with money for start-up costs, but can continue to pay the mortgage and put food on the table with the income from their current job or a while.

But how will I ever start a business if I have to keep working at my job? Finding time to work on your business when you are already working full time is a challenge, no doubt. Some people, mindful of this, save start-up funds for their business. They continue their jobs until the new business needs them full-time, and use their savings to support themselves through the early lean times.

What kinds of start-up costs will you have? Do you need to rent office space, for instance, or can you work from home? Renting an office also means expenses like furniture and perhaps an employee or two. What kinds of supplies and equipment will you need? What kinds of work will you need to contract out?

No matter how small your business plans, it takes money to get your business off the ground. The two questions are how much and where will it come from?

Some start up expenses can be delayed. For instance, you may be able to work out of your home initially, even though you’ll need an office later. Or you may be able to use a computer you already have, even though you’ll need more computer equipment later.

Think about routine business expenses:

Rent
Phone and internet connections
Equipment and supplies
Local taxes, like Business and Occupations taxes. There are also start-up expenses such as getting a business license. Every state, every locality is different. Do your research.

Also think about what kinds of things you will need to contract out or hire a consultant for. Often people are reluctant to hire someone else to do something for the business, especially when no money is coming in, but some things it’s unwise to delay. For instance, I believe that every business needs some sort of web presence. If you aren’t proficient in creating websites, I highly recommend that you hire someone to do it. You can start with a simple site at first (and that may be all you will ever need) and add or elaborate as your business grows. You will probably also need to consult with an accountant even if you plan to do your own taxes initially.

Again, it’s important for you to be informed and always do your research – you should be able to plan for how much money you’ll need initially, then how much more in start-up costs you’ll have in the first year or so.

It’s not entirely due to the recession. In fact, I’m liking my job better these days which helps a lot. But, I’m also spending nearly all of my “off hours” working on building a business of my own.

Let’s face it, I don’t want to stay at this job more than another 3 years, max.

Building a business isn’t for the faint-hearted. The biggest lesson learned over the past couple of years is that I have to have a plan and I have to have focus. What does that mean?

My plan is taking shape in a couple of excel spreadsheets right now. I’ve also create an LLC and I’ve gotten a business license. In addition I’ve got a business bank account and VISA card. I’ve even got my own UPS account. Doing this has made it very real for me. On paper I am in business. Come tax time I’ll be reminded of this – but by that time I fully expect to have at least something to report.

My focus? That’s another story. Internet marketing can lead one down a million rabbit holes to nowhere. Without focus my business will get nowhere. I’m getting better at following my plan and not getting caught up in the latest and greatest training that’s offered. In fact, I’m currently getting untangled from something I wish I hadn’t signed on for, but that’s how it goes. It’s making me tougher and helping me to understand that I need to do my homework before signing up.

Of course I am picking and choosing the tools of the trade and I’m finding some really good ones. If there’s any interest in the tools and resources I am choosing, please comment and let me know. I’d be glad to share them.

I’ll most likely write another post in the fairly near future listing what I am using. Believe me, when I don’t like a tool I ask for my money back (there’s one in particular that I was turned onto that turned out to be very problematic – and while I finally got my money back it was a big hassle – make sure there is a trial/money back period… ). The ones I’m using now, I’m very happy with and I find them to be extremely useful. Especially because I’m still working and need all the help I can get if I ever want any time off at all!

Thanks for reading this and please comment with your own experiences. I’d love to hear from you.