since i was little, i can remember my dad doing his planning in spreadsheets. budgets, loans, everything. i never really considered it much until i actually had things to keep track of. once i was out of college and entirely on my own, i suddenly had everything to keep track of.
though anal-retentiveness has always been a trait of his that latched onto me, it has never been as evident as it is today. my mom is grumbling and/or laughing right about now reading this.
since i was 14, i’ve had an up-to-date resume. since the first time my dad made me sit down and write one, i recognized how important it was. and over the last 12 years, i haven’t neglected it once.
i’ve become increasingly dependent on spreadsheets. it is both a blessing and a curse. i tried mint and pageonce for my finances, but neither did everything i wanted. let’s face it–smartphones, as awesome as they are, are just not PC replacements.
obligatory pause for people-who-live-by-their-smartphone/tablet/phablet/ipad-and-curse-everyone-who-does-not-adapt-wholly-to-it. it’s not for me.
i planned our wedding in a spreadsheet.
i keep our budget in a spreadsheet.
i keep track of every bank account in a spreadsheet.
i keep track of my credit cards in a spreadsheet.
health payments. dental payments.
weekly meal plans and grocery lists.
a checklist of things to buy and get ready before the baby gets here.
and now, thanks to dad’s latest suggestion, an amortization table for my car loan.
a chart of our 529 plan for caylin will be soon to follow.
every day that a bill is to be drafted from my bank account, it’s marked on my google calendar, on the calendar i set up specifically for bills.
my pets even have their own calendar on it for pills and appointments.
all of which gets backed up weekly and mirrored on 2 hard drives, and synced and encrypted online. i’m not taking any chances. i just can’t lose this stuff. not because the data is that important, but because i’ll lose my sanity if i do.
as much as i am like my dad in this regard, i’ve taken on a lot of my mom’s traits. especially in recent years. i bake and cook all of the things that my mom baked and cooked while i was growing up, now that i have someone to cook for. all of her recipes that were my favorites growing up have become staples in our house. except steak. we didn’t eat steak a lot when i was little, but if we didn’t have steak, i think brett would die.
on the same note, when brett isn’t around, i resort to eating chocolate or bagels or cereal or salad or pizza rolls, because it’s just not worth the effort cooking something for myself. now i completely understand why there was never any normal food in the house when i went home to visit my mom during college.
and as much as i hated her nagging about it when i was little, i unplug all the appliances and turn off all the lights after i use them. every now and then i forget, but the tendencies are there, and i can still hear my mom’s voice in my head.
i’m a nut about writing thank you notes, thanks to her.
when i was little, she used to mix her peas into her macaroni in cheese–something that disgusted me for years. now, i cook peas almost every time i make macaroni. for the same reason i always have to have green beans and chocolate milk with my spaghetti whenever i make it.
i love musicals, old TV shows, and i’m disgustingly nostalgic. i give her crap for saving boxes upon boxes of all my old stuff, but i have a pouch full of movie tickets from every single movie i’ve seen since the year 2000.
i used to get so frustrated when i was younger and every disney song made my mom cry. disney is such a happy place. how could it make someone cry? but when brett and i were watching the wishes firework show on our honeymoon, i was 9 weeks pregnant, and jiminy cricket started singing “when you wish upon a star”, it all made sense. and i know i’ll be bawling 20 years from now looking back on when we took our daughter to disney world for the first time, and jiminy cricket’s voice puts that lump back in my throat.
none of this has a point to it, except to say that i wonder what traits our daughter is going to take on and what she’ll remember about being little. since we’re a little less than 3 weeks from my due date, i find myself having all these thoughts, and wondering what things our daughter is gonna pick up or toss out. and it is scary and exciting to think about at the same time.
here’s to hoping she gets the best out of both of us.