One of the quirky things about our downtown is that we have some old timey businesses still plugging away that have probably been long forgotten in many parts of suburbia.  One of those businesses is George, the Shoe Cobbler.  George is an immigrant and his store has probably been around for as long as he’s been in this country.  If I were to guess, I think he is from Haiti or one of the Islands from down south.  When I walked in, his little toddler son was with him in the store while he was working away at repairing shoes.  Normally when I go in there, there are at least two other guys loitering in the shop and talking about life and the like.  I love George.  He fixes all my favorite things that babci can’t fix for me.  Yeah, Babci used to cobble her own shoes as well and she would use old tires to resole her stuff.  Her methods were crude, but George’s work is a lot better.

This week I brought in one of my favorite pairs of knee boots. I bought them about 3 years ago and wore them constantly but now they are getting a small hole in the side and the heels are worn down.  For $30 and a week’s wait, I’ll be able to get my favorite boots back. They should be as good as new and hopefully I’ll get another 1-2 years wear out of them.  Whenever I go in there, there are at least 100 pair of shoes in line ahead of me to get fixed.  Although I don’t know too many other people who cobble their shoes, he  always seem to be busy.

My favorite red coat that I literally live in for 6 months of the year has a lining that is shredding to bits. Yesterday I dropped it off at Babci’s. The lining is being replaced with some brown satin she had in her fabric stash.  If Babci couldn’t do it, I’d bring it to the tailor to be mended and there are at least a pair of kids’s pants every other week that are going over there to get patches put on.

I’m not sure if it’s just that I’m frugal, or that I have a deep hatred of shopping for stuff that drives me to repair vs replace stuff.  Shopping is a time suck, and I’m almost 6 feet tall, which means most stuff does not fit me correctly. Even those boots I love so much had to get altered by George to fit correctly.  It’s an exercise in frustration.   When I find something that fits me and looks good, I cherish it and baby it and mend it because it’s not easy to find comfortable shoes or clothes that fit right. My husband also has a great pair of Timberland snow boots and he glued the sole back on them last week and I suspect for the same reasons.  They are comfortable and broken in and they don’t make that style anymore.

Are you a mender? Why or why not? For me, it’s not so much the cost savings aspect as it is the hassle of finding a suitable replacement.

Have you ever really thought about what your tax return says about you?  I know a person who used to work at a tax office for the government and although illegal, this person would look up people’s tax returns because they were nosy. You’ll be happy to know they no longer work there, but it also gave me the inspiration for this week’s coffee talk.

What if I person made a decision about you based solely on your tax return?  I’ve asked some fellow bloggers to participate with me. I hope you enjoy the stories that come out of this tale.

Here’s the backstory:

You are on vacation and like it happens so often in new places, you meet a deliciously interesting person in your travels. As you learn more about him/her, you find out that not only is this person a bit of an eccentric but a billionaire entrepreneur. You two hit it off immediately and in your chit chat, you discover that (s)he has been looking for someone to fill an open position. As luck would have it, this job is not only your dream job but it’s also in your dream location and at a salary that would allow you to take along your spouse or any other important loved ones if needed.

But here’s the catch.  This eccentric entrepreneur thinks (s)he can learn more about someone from their tax return than they can ever learn from any resume.  You decide this jig is too good to pass up, so you pull out your 2010 tax return, make a copy in it’s entirety and send it over.  What will your new billionaire friend learn about you and does any of it relate to your dream job? Why or why not? Ponder the thought and life change if appropriate.

Dream Job

I’d love to say I had a dream job in mind, but I really don’t have one ideal that I’m striving for. If I met a wacky entrepreneur, my idea of a dream job would be something I’d never done before.  You see, in my career, I’ve loved learning new things and getting out of my comfort zone, so I’ve worked in a variety of business functions. I just love knowing about how all aspects of a business works. I’ve worked in manufacturing, sales, marketing, supply chain, purchasing, process development, tech service and product management just to name a few of the more interesting functions.   I think for me, my dream job would be to have the opportunity to do something wildly different from the tech sector I’m in today.  An example would be something in entertainment industry, although parts of that are very techy too.  I’d definitely want to be out of my comfort zone and be around brilliant people. Just working for the billionaire eccentric would be enough of an incentive to me. I’m sure I’d learn a ton.

My 1040 Resume

Now for the interview part.  Now, in most interviews, the interviewer has a copy of a resume in hand and asks questions about the specifics of the contents.  It’s a way to learn more about the person.  So I’m assuming during the interview I’d be asked about the specifics of my 1040 and allowed to elaborate on it.   So, first, the obvious stuff.  I’m well paid for my profession and I save the max I can for my 401K.  This shows I’m fiscally responsible and have done a good job selling my value to my current employer. If I’m asked how I got to the salary I am at, I can talk to the fact that I’m a quick learner and for many years was promoted every couple of years.  I could discuss the specific job functions I worked in and how those are translatable to my dream job in the entertainment industry.

This year, I’ll also have some blog income to deduct.  Not only does my tax return tell my new prospective employer that I have two children, and live in a dual career situation (where both partners make about the same), but I also manage to squeak out a little side business on top of it all.  This shows entrepreneurial spirit and the fact that I’m hard working.  I think any little side business that manages to turn a profit is a good one. Rental properties would show similar initiative, but thankfully I don’t have to worry about that anymore.

Lastly, what do my itemized deductions say about me?  Well first off, it says we have two homes and no mortgage deductions.  Another check box for fiscally responsible. It also shows our charitable contributions.  If asked about those, I can also speak to the specific things I do on the volunteer boards I’m on that directly impacts those non-profits.  I could use this as a way of showing I’m not just a techy geek but have worked with artists and other creative people.  At this point in the interview, I could talk about my theory of how closely art and technology are linked.   I firmly believe that innovation and technology advancement requires the same kind of out of the box thinking that artists and media people need to create that next blockbuster.  I’m the perfect fit because not only do I have a proven history of managing projects well, but I also can help guide the process of creation.  I’m positive that solving a technical problem where the answer is not known and requires invention and/or innovation is translatable to the creative process.

But it’s not all peaches and cream is it?  Entrepreneurs are risk takers and the other thing that my 1040 screams about me is that I’m unbelievably financially conservative.  I think this would be a big ding on my qualifications.  I would readily admit that this is an area I’d need to develop further in my dream job but I think it’s an area I can develop too.

Would you place a bet on hiring me in a different industry than the one I’m from?  What about you?  What is your dream job and does your tax return reflect those goals in any way? Do you have a little side business in one your passions? If not, why?

Below I’ll list links to other blogs who’ve participated in this month’s coffee talk.   Happy Reading!

Budgeting in the Fun Stuff:  My tax return and me

Dog at My Wallet:   What does your Tax Return Say about you?

Growing my Girls: My taxes my mom

Invest it Wisely: 3 things my tax return says about me

Retire by 40: Tax Return ResumCHECK BACK LATER FOR MORE ENTRIES..

The 3 family house my parents bought in the 1970′s was $10,000.  They paid cash for it and it was near condemned.  The 3rd floor apartment had  a toilet right smack in the middle of the kitchen where the sink was supposed to be and it had a ladder to access the 3rd floor stairway. My parents never had a lot of money, but they always had this falling apart fixer upper house..so what to do?

For as long as I could remember, Babci had the fix up one room/year rule.   And by fix up, I don’t mean the kind of remodeling we do now at her new house, where we gut something to the studs and start from scratch.  I mean every year, a room was painted, possibly wallpapered, and generally spruced up.  My dad smoked, so our house got pretty dingy. When a tenant moved, we also repainted the whole place.   And so, we trucked along this way for nearly 25 years.  Eventually my mom had all new replacement windows throughout her house.  She couldn’t afford the $11,000 expense to do the whole house full of 33 windows, so we did it one window at a time.  After about 5 years of buying windows every time my mom squirreled away an extra $250, it was done.  The pay as you go model also helps you from being overwhelmed by the enormity of what needs to be done in a home. Saving for 1 window is a lot less intimidating than saving to fix up your entire house.

Our Bathroom Before Remodel

When I bought my house it was much the same way.  Rather than live in our brady bunch house forever,  we did one room at a time.  For 11 years, our house had at least one room always under construction.  We implemented a modified babci technique.  We had more money for home improvements than she did, so rather than doing what they call a lipstick job, we did each room properly.  So along with the paint, we replaced doors and windows and light fixtures. We paid cash for it all and now it looks great.  We even pimped out the kitchen with granite and stainless.  It’s funny because a colleague’s wife came over who was new to town and now she intimidated by our nice house and is embarrassed to have us over hers because it’s not as nice.  We laughed when her husband told us because trust me, no one was intimidated by our house when we first bought it. In fact some people were struggling to say something positive about it. Instead of being ashamed, we threw a disco ball in our  70′s foil bathroom and had a theme party complete with guests dressed like John Travolta from Saturday Night Fever. We were proud of our ugly little house. (Okay, maybe I was too cheap to buy a disco ball, but I did make giant construction paper flower power decorations for the party.)

Our Intimidating Kitchen

One thing I’ll never understand is why people live in a place for 10 or more years, do nothing and then fix it up to look nice when it’s time  to sell. Wouldn’t it have been nicer to just live in a spruced up house all along?

Babci's old bathroom

Advice on Remodeling on a Budget

•  You don’t have to have a lot of money to improve the look of your home or apartment.   For my mom’s current 120 year old fixer that we bought at the peak of the market we need to be careful what we spend because it’s worth less than we paid.  I’ve gotten light fixtures, towel racks, hardwood flooring, tile, paint, molding, shelving and even her bathtub second hand.    I use Craigslist,my local Restore and of course, tag sales.  You can also look in the free section of Craigslist or Freecycle for things like wood for framing, molding, etc.
• A patch job is better than doing nothing  -  If you have peeling paint, or wallpaper, or stained walls, it still looks nicer to have ugly wallpaper that’s stuck to the walls properly vs curling up at the corners.
• Paint goes a long way – paint’s getting expensive but I’ve bought gallons of paint for $4 or less at Restore, the mistake isle at Home Depot and at tag sales.  Even when babci was living in her little log cabin in Poland, she whitewashed the soot off her walls every spring to make the house look clean and cheery.
• Don’t remodel more than one room at a time unless it’s necessary – This is the rule I have a hard time with, especially at my mom’s current house. We had 5 rooms gutted at her house at one point but there were literally hunks of plaster falling off the walls everywhere.  I was pregnant with my 2nd at the time and thank god because otherwise I think my husband would’ve killed me for doing it. Luckily they are all mostly rebuilt now.  We just need to do some finishing touches.
• Break Down Your projects into manageable Chunks – like the replacement window example, don’t stress if you can’t afford to remodel a whole room at once.  Save for bits of it.  Break down a kitchen remodel into chunks..buy one appliance at a time if you need to. Who cares if they all don’t match all at once. Eventually they will.
• Love your home no matter what it looks like – Perhaps it was because I had vision, but I never saw my house as the ugly duckling it was. I instead always pictured it in it’s “after” state.  When I looked in my yard, I saw the places where I wanted our flower bed to be and where grass would someday grow instead of weeds.  Love your house because of it’s potential and because many people don’t have the luxury to have one.  Since I always grew up in apartments my whole life, it had special meaning to me to live in a place where I didn’t have to worry about disturbing the neighbors.

Tell me, what kind of homeowner or renter are you? Do you ever paint just for the heck of it because you want a nice abode, or are you in the opposite camp that  has better things to do with their time? Before we moved to our current home, we actually painted the entire apartment we lived in.

UPDATE:

This coffee talk has been posted live here: Coffee Talk: My Tax Return Diary

All,

I’ve decided it was time for our next coffee talk.  For those of you new to this series, it is a way to link two seemingly unrelated topics together to stretch one’s writing ability and make for entertaining reading.  In the past, articles by fellow coffee talkers have been fresh pressed and picked up by other bigger sites. It’s a great way to make innovative and outstanding content.

Here’s the back story for February’s coffee talk.  Let’s assume for a moment that normal employment laws don’t exist in this case.

You are on vacation and like it happens so often in new places, you meet a deliciously interesting person in your travels. As you learn more about him/her, you find out that not only is this person a bit of an eccentric but a billionaire entrepreneur. You two hit it off immediately and in your chit chat, you discover that (s)he has been looking for someone to fill an open position. As luck would have it, this job is not only your dream job but it’s also in your dream location and at a salary that would allow you to take along your spouse or any other important loved ones if needed.

But here’s the catch.  This eccentric entrepreneur thinks (s)he can learn more about someone from their tax return than they can ever learn from any resume.  You decide this jig is too good to pass up, so you pull out your 2010 tax return, make a copy in it’s entirety and send it over.  What will your new billionaire friend learn about you and does any of it relate to your dream job? Why or why not? Ponder the thought and life change if appropriate.

Rules:

1. Write a post about what your tax return says about you as a person.  It can be totally built upon the back story I fabricated or you can use only the portions you are comfortable with or modify as necessary. A loose association to the topic is fine.
2. If interested mark your calendar for Feb 8th now so you don’t forget about it.
3. Try to go outside your writing comfort zone. Stretch yourself.  Pick two things that seemingly don’t go together and make it work.
4. Help me spread the word.
5. Post on February 8th.
6. Link back  to this site or email me so that I know you participated. (sandyl@firstgenamerican.com)
7. I will post a master round up list at the end of my Feb 8th article. Others can copy and paste it into their own article if desired.
8. Read and comment other’s posts, laugh, have fun, and promote your fellow blogger.

*Note, if you don’t have a blog of your own but would like to post your own content, you can also send me your article and I can post it up on my site.

I’m really looking forward to this topic. It’s going to be super fun.

I have the ultimate role model when it comes to simplified personal finances.  I often wonder if Babci even has a credit score. She’s always been on a cash only basis.  It wasn’t until I started managing her finances that  she broke down and got  a checking account.  You’re probably going to ask how the heck did she pay her bills without a checking account?  Well, back in the day, she’d walk to the utility company and pay the bill on site.  The gas company was only about 4 blocks from our house, but the other bills we paid at one of those convenience stores that would have bill paying services.  I think the fee was like $0.50 per bill.  Does anyone know if those types of services still exist?

When I graduated from college, my life suddenly got complicated. I had lots of bills to pay every month, including several student loan bills. Without realizing it, I wanted to go back to my simple days where I could count the # of monthly bills on one hand, and so started my twisted obsession with debt reduction.  In addition to that, I had a wonderful negative role model in one of my ex’s regarding credit cards.  He was one of those people who paid the minimum on a bunch of credit cards and his balance never seemed to go down from month to month. It was enough to scare me and I’ve always kept my credit cards to a manageable number of 1.  I had the same citibank credit card for 10 years, but after a few less than ideal customer service experiences, I closed my account and never looked back.

I began my breakup with Citibank by first searching for the best credit card deals.  At the time Capital One had a pretty good cash back card and I said adios Citibank and I’ve been really happy with my card ever since.  Just last week I was literally 16 minutes late paying my credit card bill and when I called to see if there was anything I could do, the customer service rep said she’d waive my late fees since I had just missed the cutoff by minutes.  I was relieved because it was my after Christmas bill which was higher than usual. Needless to say, I’m still happy with my decision 5 years later.

Credit Cards vs Cash

Although Babci still believes cash is king, I like using credit cards for just about everything. I do it for the cash back but I also like it for tracking purposes.  Thankfully, we’re at the point where I don’t have to truly budget anymore. We naturally spend less than we earn, so nowadays, I just like to periodically do a backwards look at my spending to make sure I’m not going out of control in any one area.  I know it may sound strange, but having most of my expenses showing up on one bill is a lot more shocking than paying a bunch of smaller bills.  It really helped motivated me to keep my spending in check.

Questions for the readers..just because I’m curious. How many credit cards do you have and what’s your system?  Have you ever been tempted by those 10% off deals?  Lately, I’ve been tempted by the Target card..they offer 5% cash back on all your target purchases. It seems like an incredible deal, but I wonder if it would make me spend more money than I normally would there. (I mean that’s the whole point by Target’s marketing group isn’t it?)  I also thought it would be good to have a separate card just for home improvements to make tracking expenses for capital gains purposes easier but so far I haven’t.

Despite my strong desire to save a buck, my desire to keep my financial life simple so far outweighed the short term cost savings. I’m sure if I had 27 credit cards, I’d get way more mail and there would also be way more opportunity for me to miss payments and the savings would be offset by late fees.  That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it.

Babci’s hair has been a constant source of discontent ever since she moved to my town 7 years ago. No matter where I take her, she finds fault in the hair salons I take her.  The last time she was due for a haircut, she decided that hair dressers didn’t know how to cut her hair and only a barber to do the job that would satisfy her.  I suspect it was because she just didn’t think it was worth paying $26 for a haircut and she knew a barber would be a lot cheaper. So, one Saturday morning, we went from barber shop to barber shop looking for a barber crazy enough to cut babci’s hair.  After barber shop #3, we finally found someone willing to give it a try.  Luckily, she reserved her commentary until we were back in the car.

As we were driving home, her first question was “how much did it cost?”  After answering, she immediately shared all her sentiments about what a terrible hair cut it was and that it wasn’t worth the money, blah, blah, blah.   I roll my eyes and try not to let her complaining get to me.  This is exactly what happens after every single time we go to a salon.  The crux of the issue is that she just doesn’t like paying for hair cuts, period.  No matter how cheap it is, or how good a job they do, she just never thinks it’s worth it and leaves disappointed.  Then about 6 weeks later at the most inopportune times, she randomly shoves scissors in my hands and begs me to cut her hair.   Most of the time I refuse, but last weekend, she finally wore me down. I only had small jobs at her house that weekend and I agreed to cut her hair after I was done with my chores.

Grossly Inadequate Hair Cutting Tools

We walk into the bathroom and she has one of those giant pair of black handle metal scissors (you know the ones that your schoolteacher had in grammar school), a rusty pair of blending shears and an electric trimmer labeled  “PET GROOMER” on it.  I didn’t actually notice that the trimmer was for pets until my mom proudly pointed it out followed by the deal she got on them at a tag sale this summer.  I picked up the scissors and tried to cut her hair. They didn’t cut her hair at all.  It was probably the first pair of scissors she saw and she grabbed them.  I complained and she directed me to a sharper pair she reserved for sewing. After about 20 minutes, I did manage to cut her hair to her liking, dog clippers and all and she was very happy.   The blending shears and dog clippers actually worked better than expected and all was well in the world again.  She said it was the best haircut she has gotten in years. I suspect it’s just because it was free and she finally was able to make use of the dog clippers that she picked up a few months before.

So, I guess I will have to add old lady barber to my list of growing talents.  I would have been happy to delegate those duties to a trained professional but it does seem to make Babci happy.   When it comes to frugal living, are haircuts one of those things you skimp on?   By the way, in my case, I was scarred for life by Babci’s horrendous bowl haircuts she used to inflict on me.  I overcompensate these days by paying a small fortune on my hair on a regular basis. I love my hairdresser Becky.  To this day, I recoil in horror anytime babci comes near me with a pair of scissors offering her services.  Twelve years of looking like a boy was enough to last a lifetime.

I’m back. Life was hectic, the holidays were upon us and I had 1001 things I wanted to get done during my 1.5 weeks off from work. After about thing 271 I realized that I’m insane and I needed to try to do a little less with my time. I think this is part of the Catholic Guilt I have so ingrained in me. Idleness feels like I’m sinning or something and I’m sure someone more religious could even point to a verse in the bible about it.

Wait a minute, here’s one google found for me from Proverbs:
A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.

Although I don’t have a direct hotline to God like Babci does, her religious beliefs rub off on me nonetheless. I really think laziness is one of the toughest vices to have and I feel bad for anyone that suffers from this horrible affliction. I fear it so much that it’s hard for me to schedule unplanned time just for the sake of it.

On a regular basis I over schedule myself and then have to go through an editing process to make things more reasonable again. I volunteer for too many things, or start one too many house projects and then it’s overwhelming.  I work like hell to finish a bunch and then feel relief for a bit and then start the process all over again.   Over the holidays, I had to edit out the internet completely (sorry readers) but now I’m at a point where I can add it back in again.

Sometimes you need a break from Certain People

Although I’ve gotten good at the stuff part of the equation, I still struggle with some relationships.   I have a very strong sense of family and I have one cousin who really treats me and my family with a lot of disrespect, is miserable all the time and she always makes the holidays a stressful and frustrating time.   She is either extremely late to things or does not show up at all, but then complains that the holidays are not what they used to be and throws herself a big pity party about how she’s all alone in the world. Without going into all the gory details, let’s just say this year, she did a couple of really selfish and unthinkably rude things two days in a row.  One of them was not showing up to full blown extra Xmas dinner that we made especially for her because she wasn’t ready to visit for Xmas on the day, but was complaining of not having good food to eat. She cancelled, but not until the turkey was in the oven and we’d been cooking all day.  This is not the first time we have made special plans for her and not the first time she’s done this exact same thing (shame on me for doing it again).  The second event was even worse, but I won’t get into the details here.

I’ll tell you that I probably wouldn’t have changed my ways with her (because she is family) but this issue is also affecting 4 other family members.  I’m the gatekeeper between her and them and it’s not my intent to abuse my immediate family and yet, here I am letting it happen. It’s funny how you can take more abuse than you can see given out to people you care for.

Anyway, I had lunch with my girlfriend that has multiple psychology degrees and she had some really good advice I had to share that helped me to my decision of not tolerating anymore. She is no longer getting invites to our house for the sake of our sanity.  Here’s that advice:

• When someone repeats the same rotten behavior, don’t ask yourself what’s wrong with them, ask yourself what’s wrong with you for continuing to put up with it.
• Always bring relationship issues back to yourself. You are the only one in the pair that you can control so figure out what you need to change to either live with the relationship or terminate it.
• If you give things that are not appreciated, stop giving.  In fact, the more you give, whether it’s money or time or food, the less it’s appreciated.  (I can attest that Babci trying to force feed me all the time is not as appreciated as it probably should be).
• Don’t try to reason with someone who can’t hear you.  Sometimes people are in a place in their lives when they can’t see beyond their own issues. It’s pointless to try to talk out your problems with them when they are not capable of hearing what you have to say.  Even if what you say is very clear, they will distort it to something else that is more relevant to their own personal struggles.
• Too much forgiveness leads to entitlement.  I always thought that I should never give up on someone, so I forgive readily. However,  if you forgive someone all the time for their bad behavior, then eventually some individuals feel that it is okay to treat you that way.  You are not only hurting yourself but hurting them for thinking they can act any way they please because there are no negative consequences to their actions.  Forgiveness should also have some consequences attached to it to prevent the person from doing the same rotten thing to you a second or third time.
• Time is precious. Keep the things out of your life that make it miserable. Happiness takes planning.  Sometimes changing for the better takes time to implement (like getting a new job), but being on the journey to the new destination is more than 1/2 the battle.

Other than that, our holidays were superb and I hope yours were too. Does anyone else have any sage wisdom to share about toxic people?  I would love to hear it, especially as it relates to family and coworkers as they aren’t always so easy to just remove from our lives completely.

On this blog, I make Babci sound like some kind of super granny.  She is awesome that’s for sure, but there are some things about her simple living philosophy that make me go absolutely bananas.   As I analyze why Babci would do some of the things that press my hot buttons, I try to understand why it is that she behaves a certain way.  Today, I’m going to talk about how Babci’s total lack of materialism can get on my nerves.

Generally speaking, she has an easy come and easy go philosophy. She never pays much for the stuff she has, so she doesn’t have any kind of attachment whatsoever to those things.

Materialism: The Rug Example

$10 Yard Sale Rug

If you’ve been reading First Gen for a while, you may remember this rug I scored at a yard sale for $10. It is a real oriental rug and has great coloring but smelled musty.  After a couple of hours of baking soda, vinegar and steam cleaning, it was as good as new.  I decided that it would go nicely in my mom’s new bedroom.  It looked incredibly cute and I was still impressed at the great deal I got on this adorable wool rug.

Babci had issues with the rug from day 1.  I put it a little too close to the door and the corner would sometimes roll up when she opened the door on it.   A normal person would just move the rug over a little so the door doesn’t get stuck on it.   What did babci do?  She lopped off a hunk of the rug with scissors.

butchered rug

When I saw that she butchered the rug, I was livid.  What kind of person destroys a perfectly good rug like that?   Then a couple of weeks later, she decided she didn’t like it at all and tossed it on the back porch.

We were over there again this week gutting her bathroom and the rug reared it’s ugly head again. I had almost forgotten about it and my husband needed a scrap carpet to work in the basement with and my mom  once again produced the rug.  My blood started to boil again.  Why did she have to ruin this rug if she wasn’t even planning on using it.  She could have given it to someone. It was a nice wool rug, not some el cheapo walmart special.  My husband decided it was too nice to use as scrap and he saved it from further abuse. We brought it home and put it in my office.  You can’t really see the lopped off corner from the doorway now, so I may be able to get over it..that is until it starts unraveling because it’s missing it’s binding in one corner.

Why a Little Materialism Is Good

Babci doesn’t care about personal possessions full stop.  She and my dead uncle were probably the least materialistic people I knew.  The downside to this is just that: Babci doesn’t care about her personal possessions.  She has no vested interest in keeping her furniture nice or her pots scratch free or her stuff without stains.  So when I spent over $1000 refinishing her hardwood floors and she started raking metal chairs across them and putting big gouges in the floor, I had to step back and count to 10.  I did have enough foresight to put those little sticky things on all the feet of the chairs, but these were the kitchen chairs that she put in the dining room and it didn’t phase her one bit that she was scratching up the floor.  After a month, her floors looked worse than mine have after 10 years of use.

Just like most things in life, when you’re at the extreme end of the spectrum on anything, there are negative consequences.  For me, that means I have to be okay with my mom not taking care of her stuff because she really doesn’t care about it at all.  She is even the same way with her garden.  She ripped out over 100 strawberry plants one year because she got mad that the chipmunks were eating them.  If she couldn’t have them, neither could the chipmunks. Anything I give to her, I have to assume it’s not going to make it to the end of it’s useful life.

I realize it’s hard to teach old dogs new tricks so I just have to adjust my own expectations of what she will do with the things I give her.  If it’ll make me mad that she wrecked something I spent money on, I should just not spend the money.  And that’s why I think a little materialism is good. It’s good because you actually care enough to take care of your possessions. Maybe you’ll even save a few bucks along the way because your stuff will last longer.  So that’s my little gift to the readers today. Don’t feel guilty that you enjoy and like the things you have.  It is that attachment that allows you to value and rank your possessions.  Placing no value on your possessions is almost as bad as valuing all of them equally (aka Hoarding).

What do you think of materialism? Do you know people who don’t take care of their stuff. What’s your take on it?

So we’re at the farmer’s market a few weeks ago and it is Krauting Season.  This means that we usually draw a big crowd at the farmer’s market.  People saw us filling up pillowcase after pillowcase of cabbages and couldn’t help but ask..what does one do with 200 pounds of cabbage?  A couple of people guessed stuffed cabbages, but they were way off, unless we were making stuffed cabbage to feed an entire church fair.    Well, we were making Sauerkraut, and to those who like that sort of thing have said it’s the best Sauerkraut they’ve ever had.  Sour with still a little crunch to it.  I even gave a jar to a chef I knew who was featured in Bon Apetit magazine and he said the same thing.  It’s great stuff and nothing like what you get in the stores in those plastic baggies.

Anyway, if you read my post from last year, you’ll learn that Babci is very particular about her ingredients. It has to be a special variety of winter cabbage of a certain size, picked after the first frost and made with spring water…and not that stuff from the store either..real spring water from a spring, untouched by human hands or processing equipment.

On years when there is a lot of rain, sometimes the cabbages get a line of rot through the middle of them (during a wet patch of the growing season).  This will absolutely ruin a batch of kraut, even if you try to use the rest of the cabbage.Half of the cabbages she bought had rot in them, so back to the farmer we went.   This is not the first time, but the second time my mom made me return cabbages.  The first time was about 3 years ago.  This time, I knew it was a wet summer, so I told her to cut them open before taking them, but she couldn’t be bothered.  Anyway, I threatened not to take them back and to just live with losing the $12 that the cabbages cost.  No WAY! She nagged me daily until I took her back there.  I actually snuck in and gave the farmer $12 and told him to pretend it was his money.   She ended up buying some local honey instead. She still got a barrel of kraut out of her buy.  She purchased cabbages from 2 different farms and one was fine and the other was not.

Other People Do it Too

At any rate, there is a moral to this story.  The farmer was actually glad we came and told him his cabbages were rotten inside.  He told us that there was this one farm he was using that had a bad batch of cabbages they discovered.  They supposedly abandoned that one variety but told him the other 3 varieties were supposedly fine.  Like many other products, sometimes you don’t know there is an issue until you get customer feedback and he was visibly concerned that he sold rotten cabbage to his other customers too.   With cabbage, there is no way of telling the condition until you cut them open.  He even said that this other farm that he sourced the cabbages from had other customers that returned the cabbages right to the farm itself.  So not only did Babci return these cabbages but other people did too.  I suppose this is another side benefit of buying locally from farmers.  They care. I doubt my local grocery store would take back rotten produce. Heck, some of it is already rotting in the store to begin with.

Have you ever returned produce?  Did you know you could do that?

Babci doesn’t own measuring cups or spoons for that matter.  One of the things that I often hear from my friends is this.  Babci is such a great cook.  You should write down all her old world recipes so they don’t get lost.  To which I respond: “Recipe?  What is this strange word you speak.” The closest thing I’ve seen to a measuring cup is a flour scoop and when she’s measuring out things like baking powder and baking soda, she uses any old spoon from the drawer.

I think many of our grandparents are like this. If you grew up on a farm 100 years ago, chances are you were illiterate. (Babci herself can barely read, she sounds out the words as she reads them).   The other thing that I think was a big factor besides the lack of funds to actually buy something like a cookbook was the food quality.  Unlike the homogenized nature of today’s raw materials, I think there was a lot more seasonal variety to the quality of the food.  Therefore, you may have to add more leavener if your grain is old, or more water if you’re baking with shriveled up apples at the tail end of spring.  Even today with the whole and local food movement, if you truly buy local, you can taste the difference of milk in pasture fed cows as the seasons change.   If you’ve picked up any artisan baking cookbooks, they too try to reproduce recipes by feel instead of solely by portion sizes.

Like many things, Babci was for the most part a self taught cook.  She’s still bitter that my aunt didn’t ever share tips on how to cook when she arrived in this country.  You see, Babci’s diet in Poland was very meager.  She could make oatmeal or barley all day long and made a mean milk soup (milk with drop noodles and a little bit of sugar), but she never had the luxury of learning how to make meals out of meat or  make fancy desserts, so she had to teach herself.   She is a horrible baker by the way.  With baking, you need recipes.   She still keeps on trying  to make stuff and for some reason refuses to follow her polish recipe books that she bought during her last trip to Poland.  I’m often the sorry sucker she tries to push her burnt and dry baked good creations on.  Her meal cooking is fabulous though.

Here are a few babci’s cooking tips that she’s shared with me over the years:

• When making dough, it can’t be too sticky or too dry. It must be just so.  Her egg noodles have 2 ingredients, eggs and flour.  Her recipe is this..add just enough flour so that the eggs soak it up, then make a dough ball.  Continue kneading it until it’s not sticky  anymore.
• Add Spices slowly.  Add, taste, add taste, until it tastes right.
• How to Select Spices (actually this is a tip from my friend Greg who is a fab cook) – open a spice bottle or two, hold it above the pot you are cooking in and then waft the aroma of the spices and food towards you. If it smells good, then add. If it smells strange, then omit.
• You must use fat in all cooking – okay, this is not a healthy option and I keep telling my mom that I won’t eat things covered in pork rinds anymore. I think this is leftover from the days when meat was scarce and lard was an important source of calories on the farm.  These days when food and calories are plentiful and her workload is much lower, it’s sadly a recipe for obesity.
• Don’t use Fake Ingredients – I don’t think I’ve ever seen babci buy anything besides condiments from the middle isle.  It’s all staples like flour, sugar, butter, bread, meat, grains, fruits, veggies, oil.   The one exception I’ve seen is buying a jar of Prego or Ragu once in a while to use as a soup base for her tomato soup.
• Processed Food is Poison – Babci is afraid of preservatives and of any pre-made meals where she hasn’t seen the ingredients that have gone into them.  She is convinced that the food industry adds things that are cheap vs nutritious to make higher profits.
• Use Lots of Garlic and Onions-  They are good for you.

How about you?  Do you have relatives that are great cooks and don’t use recipes?  I have to admit, I don’t use them often either, except when I bake.  Do you think the secret to being a great cook is in fact, not using recipes and allowing yourself to be creative and adjust flavors as needed?