{"id":184,"date":"2011-06-24T17:20:00","date_gmt":"2011-06-24T17:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/?p=184"},"modified":"2011-07-11T17:15:19","modified_gmt":"2011-07-11T17:15:19","slug":"a-bike-and-a-lesson-in-living-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/2011\/06\/a-bike-and-a-lesson-in-living-now\/","title":{"rendered":"A Bike and A Lesson in Living Now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Is there such thing as being too frugal? You&#8217;d have had a hard time convincing me of it a few months ago. My mother and her mother before her were practiced at sacrificing and saving for their families&#8217; financial welfare. My Grandma Verna survived what we call the &#8220;Great Depression&#8221; so she had money saving tips that boggle the mind, including washing and reusing bread bags and reusing paper napkins for at least two meals. My mom wasn&#8217;t far behind her in practicing frugality and early on I saw the wisdom of their habits. Neither had debt, both paid off their homes and saved for the future.<\/p>\n<p>As a mom, I often find myself giving up something special that I want for the sake of my family&#8217;s needs or perceived needs. I prioritize bills against other things we need and push those things further down the list. As we provide (on a single income) for our small children, who eat an astonishing amount of food, I find myself giving up things I need for myself, like attractive clothing, dinners out with friends and even makeup. There have been bigger ones too &#8211; like the birthday money I received toward a &#8220;real&#8221; camera that I had to spend on an unexpected bill. That was three years ago and I still don&#8217;t have the camera.<\/p>\n<p>I am circumspect about these choices and recognize them as a necessary part of my decision to trade a more comfortable income with the chance to stay home and enjoy every minute of my children&#8217;s preschool experience. And, I can honestly say, I am content.<\/p>\n<p>But, since a rather <strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/organicmamacafe.blogspot.com\/2011\/02\/miscarriage-and-unexpected-turn-of.html\">life changing experience<\/a><\/em><\/strong> in February when I spent some time in critical condition due to a severe miscarriage hemorrhage, my outlook has changed. For those of you who have read my blog for a while, I don&#8217;t want to harp on this excessively, but quite frankly, feeling my life almost seep out between my legs drastically affected my perspective. I emerged with a profound gratitude to be alive and a fierce determination to wring every drop from this intoxicating drink called life. I find myself saying, &#8220;Yes!&#8221; a lot more and taking every opportunity to connect with people, long time friends and strangers. And, I&#8217;m doing things for me that I had previously put off to &#8220;someday&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Before my mom died, she gave me money for a birthday and I told her I couldn&#8217;t decided whether to buy a beautiful quilt I loved or get a jump on some other financial obligation.<\/p>\n<p>Mom surprised me by saying, &#8220;Sweetie, you know I believe in being frugal. I have spent a lot of my life giving up things I want to support our family and I&#8217;ve never regretted it. But, I hope you&#8217;ll get that quilt because you need to have a little fun along with the responsibility.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Like a typical daughter, I listened but I still did what I thought was right. I didn&#8217;t get the quilt.<\/p>\n<p>This year, I feel differently. When we had a little extra income a month ago, I did something extravagant. I spent money on <em>ME<\/em> and bought a bike. A brand new, sparkly, lavender bike. My husband threatened to pick it himself when I teetered on the edge of &#8220;No&#8221;. I&#8217;ve been riding around like a little kid ever since and am relishing the freedom, alone time and exercise it&#8217;s brought to me.<\/p>\n<p>Friends, <strong><em>I am not<\/em><\/strong> advocating being unwise or thoughtless with your finances. I still believe in saving, making smart choices and shopping at thrift stores (it&#8217;s like a treasure hunt!). My purchase didn&#8217;t require a credit card or compromising my ability to buy groceries.<\/p>\n<p>But, I discovered that I believe in one pass at this life and I want to find a way to feel it all. I want the beauty along with the ugly, the hope along with the pain. And, in this case, the bike along with helmet (even though that&#8217;s a double positive). Taking hold of life does not necessarily require spending more money &#8211; but it does require our taking advantage of the moment we&#8217;re in and being the fullest version of ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>Hope you all have a wonderful weekend and that you are enjoying every bit of the life you&#8217;re leading. If you&#8217;re looking for me, I will be riding my bike!<\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\" href=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-FFyC3t_uqqY\/TgTGyzNXOyI\/AAAAAAAAAaY\/vLExLEp2xLc\/s1600\/bike+pic.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-FFyC3t_uqqY\/TgTGyzNXOyI\/AAAAAAAAAaY\/vLExLEp2xLc\/s400\/bike+pic.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"297\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is there such thing as being too frugal? You&#8217;d have had a hard time convincing me of it a few months ago. My mother and her mother before her were&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-now"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1GpYg-2Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":262,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184\/revisions\/262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.organicmamacafe.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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