Musings

Goodbye Quinn

Well, 2017 started off rough as we had to put our oldest dog Quinn down yesterday. She’d lived a long life of over 16 years and fortunately didn’t go through the cancer issues that her sister did 2 years ago, but it still sucks. It sucks saying goodbye to a good friend and it sucks seeing someone you know age. It’s hard making that choice too. Is it too soon, is her quality of life diminished enough to justify this decision, are we being selfish keeping her around a little longer? Lots of questions; questions you don’t really get to make with people. If she was a person, she’d be in a home, just waiting to die, getting visits from us on the weekends, if we weren’t too busy, but maybe I’m more of a pessimist in that regard.

Such a sweetie!
Such a sweetie!

I remember when I first met Quinn and Harley, 2 sisters that Mrs. SSC rescued from the streets of Chicago 15 yrs ago. It was my first visit to Mrs. SSC in Chicago after our internship and we’d gotten back to her apartment, a nice 3rd floor walkup, and as she opened the door there was a ton of barking and 2 dogs jumping up on me wanting to know who the new person was in their place. They were a great pair of dogs but they couldn’t be more dissimilar. Harley had the nickname dingo because she looked and acted like one of the crazy hyenas from Lion King, and Quinn was a cuddler and a “soft whore” always looking for the next best soft spot in the house to lay on.

Harley, the crazy quiet dingo.
Harley, the crazy quiet dingo.

I remember when we tried to save money and shave them ourselves in Mrs. SSC’s apartment one summer. Harley worked out fine, except she got these “racing stripes” down her back that never seemed to grow right again, adding more weight to her hyena personality, and Quinn… Oh Quinn… The 5″ of fur that we tried to take of of her started to pile up, float around the apartment, and bog down the clippers and we weren’t even halfway through shaving her. Once we finally finished, we vowed to never try that again and stayed successful, until that point where she didn’t handle the groomers well anymore. Then I gave her a couple of hand trim shaves at home, but it’s way easier when you have a yard and aren’t trimming her inside a small apartment.

She never did seem to recover well after the loss of her sister 2 years ago. They’d been together since birth and after Harley was gone, she just seemed to be more distant. Not wanting pets as much, not wanting to snuggle as much, and kind of distancing herself from the family. Lola helped some, but it probably wasn’t the same. They played well and got along well the first year, but after that, even Lola was too much for Quinn. Getting old sucks.

Lola, the new queen of the castle
Lola, the new queen of the castle

Of the two, Harley was definitely my favorite, but Quinn, was definitely the cuddler. I’ll miss having her come up to me looking to get petted and snuggling in to hang out. I’ll miss her bouncing around on those rarer days that the temperature gets cold and she gets to enjoy being outside with that massive fur coat of hers.

I’ll just miss her period. She added a lot to the household and was great with the kids, and pretty much, I’ll just miss her.

Lessons Learned from “The Little Blue Truck”

It can be easy as the holiday season comes along to feel “too busy”. Just yesterday, I had the misfortune of going to a couple of stores that were already mired with holiday shoppers. I was amazed by the lack of civility people exuded, both in the parking lot and in the store. People didn’t want to let others into traffic, or they were jockeying for position to get that all important parking space. Even in the store, people were being unusually aggressive with their carts. Just stopping and letting someone else go in front of me, got smiles, thank-you’s and unusual looks, as if to say, “why is he being nice, what’s his angle?” Then they would rush onward looking for whatever was on their list. It reminded me of the story, The Little Blue Truck.

A few nights ago I was reading The Little Blue Truck to my youngest and thought it was a great message as we go into the holiday season. For those not familiar, here’s a short version. The Little Blue Truck is a story about a friendly little blue truck that says hi to everyone he passes as he drives around.

So much fun to read!
So much fun to read!

A Dump Truck comes barging through complaining about being too busy to say hello to everyone, because he’s “got big important things to do.”

Too busy to be nice. So sad...
Too busy to be nice. So sad…

When he gets stuck in the mud and needs help, noone comes except for the Little Blue Truck. He of course gets stuck too, but when he “Beeps” for help, the whole barnyard shows up to get them both out of the mud. The Dump Truck then realizes that he should be nicer and that “a lot depends on a helping hand from a few good friends.”

I like to think that the Dump Truck learns that being nice and not being self-centered, is good for everyone, not just him. It’s easy to get wrapped up in our to-do lists and forget about other people. We don’t know what’s going on in their lives, and they could be dealing with all sorts of stressful things in their life. We don’t know. So just try and take a few seconds when you are put into a situation where you can choose to be nice like the little Blue Truck or be like the Dump Truck and imagine you were the person, you’re about to mean or nice to. How would you like to be treated?

It’s know hard to always be nice and friendly like the Little Blue Truck, and I know Mrs. SSC would say I’m definitely more akin to drive like the Dump Truck, but I’m working on it. That’s all we can do. This week, if you’re out on the road, or God forbid, you venture into the shopping madness of the Black Friday weekend, try to be like the Little Blue Truck and be nice to people. I know they’ll appreciate it.

Little Blue Truck says Beep! Beep! Beep!
Little Blue Truck says Beep! Beep! Beep!
Happy Thanksgiving!

Time Changes Everything: 2 years blogging!

I can’t believe it’s been 2 years since we started the blog! Okay, it’s actually 2 months late, but, close enough for me. Going back thru all of our earlier posts and reading them (yeah I read almost all of them – again) I realized, “Holy Cow some things have changed a LOT since we started writing. Here’s what I found has changed in our Financially Independent Retire Early (FIRE) mindset, our myriad of plans, my comfort level with leaving the workforce at my peak earning years (who does that?!) and even how our timing has changed over the years. Before we get to the changes, I just want to say THANK-YOU to everyone that’s followed the blog, makes comments on the posts, and retweets the scant few things I put out there! You guys are an awesome community and I’m glad to be a part of it!

Fall Clothing Evaluation: Let the purge begin!

I have a problem. A clothes problem. I hate ironing, and I don’t like doing laundry. Actually, I don’t mind doing laundry, but I don’t like putting away the clothes afterwards. Generally, I wait until it reaches critical mass before I break down and put my clothes away. That’s okay because I have a system in place that supports this behavior. Generally, I have enough clothes to not have to put away clothes for close to a month if I time it right. Yep, that’s a lot of clothes, and that’s what led to my Spring Fall cleaning this past weekend.

Can I Really Tell Work “No”?

Just yesterday afternoon I got a call from an HR person in my company. They asked if I would be able to go to my alma mater and do some interviews for new hires and the upcoming intern season next summer. This all sounded great. I would get a chance to go back to Colorado, it’s probably not still in the 90’s there, I could see the old campus, and maybe even catch up with an old friend while in town. Then I found out the details and their answers made me spit out my tea – I literally had to clean my monitor… Suddenly, the trip seemed way more hassle and way less positive, no matter how I could spin it. I realize glorifying work trips is easy to do (not really, they mostly all tend to suck) especially when they involve getting back to CO even for a few days. I wrestled with what impact this would have on my career and what kind of exposure I would miss out on by not going. Mrs. SSC’s suggestions even had me second guessing the supposed benefits of going. Through all of this debate, I came to a few career conclusions that were a little shocking even to me.

Fresh Roasted Coffee: Delicious and Cost Effective!

We drink coffee, a lot of coffee, I mean it is even in our blog’s name, Slowly Sipping Coffee. All of this coffee consumption over the years has led me to trying to find a good balance between “good” coffee and “low cost” coffee. In Denver, I would go to Sunflower Market to their bulk bean bin and pay ~$6/lb which was good at the time. We’ve tried buying in bulk when we still had our Costco membership, we’ve tried the bulk bean route at the grocery store, and those worked well to cut down on costs but the best savings and flavor balance I’ve found so far is – wait for it – roasting my own coffee!!

I know right?! How would roasting your own coffee at home be cost effective and easier than just buying it at the store? Don’t you need specialized equipment, a grand knowledge of coffee roasting principles, and somewhere to buy the beans? The short answers are No, Meh, and the internet. For the longer answer, keep reading and let me explain.

Will your retirement have an ikigai?

Until Mrs. SSC left her old job to teach, she was miserable. Her company continually reminded her she was just a number by dragging her and others through long protracted layoffs. Even though she didn’t get let go, the whole process left her with zero job satisfaction, and ultimately she lost all drive to work there. I felt very similarly working for that company my last year there, and after failing to get moved to a better position, I also left that company.  We had both lost our ikigai…

What’s ikigai? Ikigai (pronounced icky guy) is a Japanese term that translates as “the reason to wake up in the morning.” In other words, it’s your driver in life, what keeps you going and motivated. Does that mean we really need a reason to get up in the morning if we’re retired?

What do you do to get out of a slump?

Lately, my brain has been pretty frenetic and it’s hard to get it to calm down enough to focus and write a decent blog post. I think most of the concentrating/focus gets used up during the day, as I’ve been fairly busy at work recently redoing and updating some geomodels. It’s not bad, but there is a lot of tedium involved that takes a lot of focus and thought or you’ll be spending tomorrow redoing the work you spent today doing. This has carried over at home too, as I find I’m more prone to be tired, like really tired, and that leads to a grumpy Mr. SSC which no one enjoys having around. So my question to you is, have you gotten into these “slumps” and what did you do to get out of them? Here’s what I’ve been trying and isn’t working so far.  

More thoughts on Home Costs…

After the deluge that hit Houston yesterday, I’ve been thinking about how much home ownership is loaded with risk. First off, we’re fine, and our house is fine, although there are thousands of people that are not in that situation today. A quick recap on what happened here yesterday, according to news reports, there were over 1,200 high water rescues, and the equivalent to ~240 BILLION gallons of water fell in a matter of hours. Effectively, almost 17” of rain between 3 am and noon. Whoa… We had a lot of rain around Memorial Day last year, but it wasn’t a quick episode like this one. Even though we didn’t plan to end up in our neighborhood, more and more we appreciate where we are and how little we have to worry about flooding.

Half Marathon – Yeah, I did it!

It's also a belt buckle! Yeah Texas!
It’s also a belt buckle! Yeah Texas!

This weekend I ran the Outlaw Half Marathon in Luckenbach, Texas, and I finished! Yeah!! While I didn’t hit my stretch goal of finishing in under 2 hrs, I still had a lot of fun and really enjoyed it, and I think I may have found a new hobby. Even as recently as last December I hadn’t broken the 5 mile mark with my running, but since I’ve written about that already, you can catch up here if you missed it. This post will focus more about the race day, feelings going into it, and random thoughts during and after the race.

Just so I’m not wasting anyone’s time, there’s no financial stuff in this post, but if you want to read more about the half marathon journey, continue onward!