Monday, May 5, 2014

Feed the birds, tuppence a bag

In “The Waste Land” T. S. Eliot called April the cruellest month, but May is worse on my bank account.

Before May 2014 ends, our family will see a granddaughter’s 14th birthday, a grandson’s 15th birthday, Mother’s Day, our 51st wedding anniversary, a grandson’s graduation from high school, and our daughter’s receiving a Masters Degree. My father’s birthday was in May too but he is no longer with us.

I do not begrudge the giving of gifts, not at all, but I must learn to include them in my budgeting process.

Shantih.....shantih.....shantih


8 comments:

  1. What did your daughter get her degree in, and how are her job prospects?

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  2. How I wish that tuppence a bag would still do it. I am frightened by just how many tuppences it takes each week to indulge my avian obsession. And not about to give it up any time soon.
    Good luck with your challenging, exciting, expensive May. And it will all be worth it.

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  3. Snowbrush, my daughter has been a schoolteacher at the elementary level for nearly twenty years. I believe her graduate school training is in Elementary Leadership (I may have the title wrong), which qualifies a person to become a principal or work at the county school district level.

    Elephant's Child, for my particular birds it also takes much more than tuppence!

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  4. Burning burning burning burning
    O Lord Thou pluckest me out
    O Lord Thou pluckest

    I should read "The Wasteland" again. When you are twenty what you bring to a poem is diminished by your inexperience. At sixty or seventy there is almost certainly a better sense of perspective.

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  5. I'm afraid that in almost 35 years of marriage, we have yet to actually manage to budget for anything. My husband is a small-project building contractor. Our lives have been feast or famine all thru the years, yet we always have enough and beyond.
    I'm afraid my own particular obsession is with old sewing machines. Now, postage stamp collecting would have taken up less room AND been easier on the budget, but those old treadles and handcranks call to me and I must answer......yes..........

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  6. Yorkshire Pudding, maybe it's not what you bring to the poem, it's what the poem brings to you.

    Hilltophomesteader, postage stamp collecting might take up less room but it's not necessarily easier on the budget. Trust me. My dad collected U.S. commemorative plate blocks.

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  7. Congratulations on all the happy activities in your family. On May 10, my Son's younger daughter will receive her Bachelor's Degree, the first of my eight grandchildren to do so. Several have attended college but, so far, have not stuck it out long enough to receive a four-year degree. My family also has four birthdays in May, including that of my father, born in 1886.
    These days, I just send (handmade) cards.

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  8. I am with you on May. I have my father's birthday, my sister's, one nephew, Spatz's, two friends, and it was my late grandma's birthday at the end of May too. It's my busiest month for birthdays. Budgeting indeed. Congratulations to all your loved ones.

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<b>Always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion</b>

We are bombarded daily by abbreviations in everyday life, abbreviations that are never explained, only assumed to be understood by everyone...