Lovely in Lavender

That was quick! I stopped in at Mandeville GardenWorks this afternoon and bought two small lavender plants, both Munstead variety. So, my next task will be to replant them in 2 of the many pots I have in my shed, both to give them a little room to grow and to  provide a saucer under the pot for drainage purposes.

We'll see if they'll grow here at the Coast. I've had this type before but was growing it in the Okanagan then. I'll also see if I can get enough light inside for them to grow successfully.

Goal or No Goal?

I think the first thing to do as I try to figure out what direction I'm taking with this is to haul out my list of long term goals and take a good, hard look at them. Right now they just sit there in that sidebar, mocking me. Am I still interested in them? Am I still working towards them? Is there something else that should be on that list? In other words, is this still a goal, or not?

1. Take Religious Studies courses, potentially leading to an undergraduate degree.

Okay, I haven't done more than occasionally look at university websites and their courses. I don't have the money to go back to school and I work almost full time, so I also don't have the time to take a full course load. Frankly, I don't have the energy to even take *one* course at this point in time. I might go back to this in a couple of years, if and when certain circumstances change. Right now, however, it doesn't belong on my list. That makes me sad, but I have to be honest about this.
2. Become fluent in Hebrew.

This *is* still a goal of mine, though my work towards it is sporadic at best.
3. Study oenology and viticulture, potentially leading to a degree.

This goal is far too far down the road for me at this moment, so it needs to come off.
4. Grow lavender for sale.

Hmm, I love lavender and I want to be able to grow it better or more successfully than I've done in the past. I probably can't grow enough to actually grow it for sale at this point, but I'd like to actually get back to growing it and experiment with it a bit. So this goal can stay for now.
5. Buy a minimum of 5 acres of land in our chosen retirement area.

First of all, that should say *my* chosen retirement area. And right now I could buy 5 acres about as easily as I could fly to the moon. Luckily I don't need to be retiring in the near future. And I already have my existing home in the area, though it still needs plenty of work. This comes off the list until I have the funds to buy the land.
6. Build a home on the land.

No land, no home. Off the list for now.
7. Plant grapes and open a kosher winery.

How do you make a small fortune in the wine industry? Start with a large one! This one, or a variation of it, can stay for now but it had better start to develop or else!
8. Get totally out of debt and stay there!

I *definitely* need to keep this one!
9. Lose 10 pounds.

Um, I actually *did* that. And I've maintained it for a couple of years now. I guess it can come off the list! Yay! Success at something!
10. Accumulate enough retirement funds to supplement our pensions and other income streams.

*My* pension. Aside from that, I have to say I'm not really putting away money for retirement while I'm sinking further into debt. I really have to deal with my overall financial situation first and then start to put away a bit of money.

So that leaves me with 4 out of my 10 goals that I can use or rework. I'm going to add one more now that will take me up to 5 goals and then I'll rework all my microgoals.

1. Become fluent in Hebrew.
2. Grow lavender.
3. Find a way to partner with others to develop a kosher wine business, including the possibility of fruit wines.
4. Get totally out of debt and stay there!
5. Develop at least two alternative income streams (in addition to my current employment) and use the money I make to accomplish my other goals, starting with getting out of debt.

So, my microgoals are the small steps I will be taking *now* in order to move ahead with each goal.

1. Go back to Rosetta Stone and figure out how to log in again.
My Dear Child and I wanted to get ahead in Hebrew, so I bought the Rosetta Stone course a few months ago when it was on sale. We tried it a few times and then got really busy. Now I don't remember our log in. If I can't figure it out, I'm sure there's a way to reset it.
2. Go to a few gardening centres (like Home Depot, Art Knapp's, etc.) and look at lavender plants. Only buy if I find the types of lavender I'm looking for.
3. Get together with someone who expressed interest in this project.
Maybe meet for coffee and discuss the project? This person suggested another mutual friend and perhaps that would be the first thing for us to follow up on.
4. Stay current on the regular bills, paying things every payday.
5. Go to the start up meeting for 31 Canada in BC on April 7 and enroll that night. Do as much pre-planning as possible ahead of time so I can start strong.

Not bad. I think I can live with these goals for now. The underlying theme behind these goals is happiness, something I would like to expand upon soon. For now, I think I'll just finish getting this post up and editing the sidebar. It is after 2 am, after all.

Preparing to Create Goals

When I was looking back at my goals for 2009 the other day I wondered why I hadn't succeeded with them.  I've been thinking about that quite a bit ever since and I came up with a couple of thoughts.

The first thought is not original in the least.  I think about this every time it happens, then develop amnesia until the next time I end up majorly off track with my goals.  I forgot about them.  On the face of it, that sounds pretty darn dumb doesn't it?  I forgot that I planned to pay down 1/3 of my total indebtedness?  I forgot to keep current with my bills?  But it happens to me all the time.  I set a goal.  Sometimes I even plan out how to get to the goal.  I start off well.  Then I forget.  It's like falling asleep, waking up and not being able to recall the dream you just had.  Over the years I've come to realize that this zoning out or forgetting is a form of resistance.  What I haven't figured out is why I have such strong resistance to so many types of positive changes (because I'm not just talking about financial issues here).  And why do I forget instead of just rebelling?  Is it a way to be passive-aggressive with myself?

My second thought was more practical.  I need a way (or ways) to help me stay focused on the goal so that I will work toward it and continue to do so until I achieve it.  What will kep me headed in the right direction?  Accountability strikes me as a likely possibility.  Really?  Knowing I'd have to admit failure here on the blog didn't help me keep up with my goals this year, did it?  So maybe I have to be accountable on a more regular basis, like monthly or weekly, or even twice a week.  If I know that every Sunday and Wednesday I have to address how I'm doing maybe I'll actually stay on task.  Setting monthly goals is also an idea, but monthly goals that relate to the overall ones directly instead of additional random goals.

In the end, what got me fired up enough to write this post was going online and looking up a property I had considered earlier this year.  It was smaller than I wanted but in the right price range and I might have done something about it if I'd been able to easily access the money we have tied up in my Eldest Daughter's house.  I didn't because they weren't in a position to refinance and take out that chunk of equity now that my daughter will be going off on maternity leave in the New Year.  In fact, they won't be able to do that until she goes back to work at the end of her year-long leave.  They can't make the ratios while she's only getting 57% of her usual salary.  So I know that my dream is kind of on hold for a year.  And this property isn't on the market currently.  I don't think it sold; I think it was just taken off because there wasn't enough interest in it.

Anyway, I'm using it as a bit of a focal point.  I looked up what the mortgage on it would be and then got serious about figuring out how to pay down some of our debt because I also need to come up with another $4,000 to $5,000 over what I can eventually access.  I looked at how fast I could just put it aside versus paying down debt and then saving, versus doing both at once.  Once I pay off my credit card debt I can take that money and add it to the mortgage payments.  Basically, it looks like I can do this in 18 months to 3 years and then pay off a 25 year mortgage in 5 years.  In the end, I've decided that doing both at once provides me with psychological benefits so that's what I'm planning to do.

Now, I realize I don't have this piece of land and that it may not be available once I reach the point where I'm ready to move on it.  But there have been a few pieces of land in that same price range over the past year so I'm willing to trust that there will be another one if this particular property isn't available.  At least, once I pay down debt and save up that money I'll be prepared to jump on something when it comes up.  Otherwise, the best deal in the world could come around and I wouldn't be in a position to accept it.

I'm still working on refining my goals a bit.  I'll put them up soon, along with how I'm planning to keep myself accountable.

A Learning Goal for 2009

On January 1st Trent posted a great article entitled "What Will You Learn This Year?" and it has inspired me to make a decision that I've been going back and forth on for a while.

The basic idea behind his post was that he was challenged to choose something to learn well by spending an hour a day at it for a year. Trent's decision to master solving the Rubik's Cube in under 3 minutes struck me as a little frivolous and was challenged by a number of commenters, although I understand that he chose it as a "parlour trick" that was portable, could be easily demonstrated and documented via YouTube updates.

I used to be able to solve the Cube in 3 minutes when it was first popular. I had a book on how to do it, which was very useful for the lower layers. Getting one side all one colour is not that complex, but getting the next 2 layers done without permanently undoing what you've already completed is the challenge. I eventually came up with a sort of "cheat sheet" on binder paper with little diagrams to help me remember some of the key moves and I memorized others. It was fun, but not particularly useful and I certainly don't remember how to solve it now. I could probably pick it up again in a week or two but that's not my learning goal for 2009!

I first started doing a particular daily religous learning, known as Chitas, a little over a year ago. CHiTaS is an acronym for Chumash [Bible, specifically Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible], Tehillim [the Book of Psalms] and Tanya [a kabbalistic book in several volumes written by the Alter Rebbe]. It takes me about half an hour (sometimes longer) to read the daily Torah portion with Rashi's commentary, the day's portion of Psalms and the day's portion of Tanya. I try to do it first thing in the morning (before I get Dear Child up for school) because if I don't do it then it really tends not to get done. I did fairly well with it last year, although there were times I fell behind and had to play catch up.

I did have a concern that I should be learning in the evening as well and considered moving the Chumash part of it to nighttime because it can be very variable in length, especially the amount of commentary. I also checked out another program called Nach Yomi which takes you through the other two parts of the Bible (Navi [Prophets] and Ketuvim [Writings]) by reading a chapter per day for two years. The OU started doing this at the beginning of November 2007 and all the shiurim [lectures] are available online with new ones added daily.

I thought it would be appropriate to start it at the beginning of November 2008 (so that it would be very easy to listen to the appropriate class by just clicking on the current date, albeit a year out) and did try for a while but was falling behind and getting discouraged.

I've also been taking a weekly university level class in Biblical Hebrew. I like the class but I don't have good study habits and am always flying by the seat of my pants. I find it particularly challenging because I went to school at a time when grammar was considered to be a non-essential subject and this course is heavily grammatical. I don't always understand what the instructor means when she talks about the difference between certain types of clauses (for example) and I feel stupid asking in front of the others (the class includes college instructors).

However, the reason for taking Biblical Hebrew was twofold. It was to help me with my translation of Chumash and to help me decide whether I want to pursue an undergraduate degree in Religious Studies. As tough as it is, I'm feeling more and more drawn to pursuing the degree.

Maybe I'm crazy. I work more than half time. I look after my granddaughters more than half time. I blog. I have other commitments and may be adding some additional work that I could do at home (in my "spare time" ha, ha) for more money.

But if I don't do this now, when will I do it? When will there be a better time? When I'm also managing my land from 4 hours away? When I'm also making wine or setting up a website to sell lavender products? My Dear Child has just started her way through the educational system and is learning Hebrew and studying Torah. By actively learning myself I provide her with the best possible role model.

I've put off making this decision but Trent's post made me really sit down and think about the whole thing. Not just from a time or tiredness point of view but with an eye to what I want in the long term. Who do I want to be? What value do I really put on learning? What middot [character traits] to I want to develop within myself? Where am I strong? And where am I lacking?

Ultimately I've decided to set a learning goal for 2009 of studying religious subjects for at least one hour per day. I don't expect it to be easy. I believe the hardest part of it will be developing the self-discipline necessary to actually do it every day. But I believe it will be valuable on many levels.

Microgoals Revisited

I put up a sidebar with my microgoals some time ago in an attempt to keep myself on track. So, how am I doing?

In some categories I'm getting some things done. In others, I'm seeing things sit there for an embarrassingly long period of time. (Notice that I haven't caught up on the classwork I missed the first couple of weeks of class? Or, how about the bill I still haven't paid?) But that's the point. I'm supposed to be embarrassed by things like that so I get off my tushy and actually do them! (My excuse is that there have been a lot of holiday days this past month or so, where we can't write or handle money, but that excuse won't fly any more.)

Other things aren't really moving forward, but that's because I have some kind of decision to make. I haven't opened the ING sub-account for the wine course because I'm looking at the new Tax Free Savings Account that is coming in at the beginning of January and wondering about the value of rolling all my subaccounts over into that.

Basically, the TFSA is an account that you can put $5,000 into per year and the interest is tax-free. The nifty thing about it is that you can withdraw the money at any time and for apparently any purpose without incurring a penalty! And, any money you take out this year gets added to your $5,000 contribution room for next year. For example, if you have the maximum in your TFSA for 2009 and you withdraw $2,000 of that in November 2009 you can turn around and put $7,000 in during 2010! You can also roll over any unused contribution room to a later year. So, if you put in $5,000 in 2009 and then had a bad year in 2010, where you couldn't contribute at all, you could put in up to $10,000 in 2011.

I need to get a little more information about how it works if you deposit monthly (instead of putting the maximum in at the beginning of the year) and take out money some months later. Can you continue with your monthly deposits this year or not? I think you can, so long as the money you deposit doesn't exceed $5,000 (including the initial deposit of the money that was later withdrawn) in that calendar year. But I still want to confirm that.

A lot of people have been talking about the TFSA as an additional type of retirement plan, but I don't see why I can't toss my emergency fund, my vacation pay and my other set-aside money into a TFSA and then just pull out the money as I need it. The only drawback would seem to be that I'd then have to keep track of just how much of the money belonged to which category. Right now, with sub-accounts, I just log on and can see how much I have in my emergency fund at a glance. I don't have to do math.

As I say, I'm still deciding.