In 2017 I have…

It’s been a year, hasn’t it, friends?

These past months have been crowded and stressful, both in the world and in my own life. But they’ve also held beauty and laughter and joy. Here’s my annual (long but non-comprehensive) list of what has happened this year.

In 2017, I have:

• marked two years at the Kennedy School and four (and a half) years at Harvard, and weathered an unbelievably turbulent fall here.
• walked over nearly every inch of Cambridge, by myself and often with a dear friend.
• taken numerous photos of flowers, many of them on said walks.
• made countless trips to Darwin’s for nourishment: chai, Earl Grey, scones, sandwiches, English muffins, and the warm welcome I always find there.

• spent a long October weekend introducing my parents to New York City.
• returned to PEI with the hubs for our third blissful stretch of days there.
• spent a week wandering Oxford, city of my heart.
• tried my first boot camp workout – a six-week series taught by my favorite yoga instructor – and loved it.
• surprised myself by taking up running.
• run my first 5K (in the snow!).
• moved (again) and settled into our new apartment, a lovely third-floor eyrie in Dorchester.
• fallen in love with the river trail near our house.

• logged a lot of hours doing yoga.
• read 149 books and reviewed 50 of them for Shelf Awareness.
• written a couple of final reviews for Great New Books and bid farewell to the site.
• flown to Texas for a late spring visit with my family.
• interviewed Alice Hoffman (and a couple of other authors) for Shelf Awareness.
• followed magic – my one little word – to some unexpected places.
• taken two winter trips to NYC.

• gone on a few weekend escapes with the hubs: a Florida beach, a wee Connecticut town, the Maine woods.
• spoken (once) and listened (on many days) at Morning Prayers at Memorial Church.
• done a lot of church work, as ever: sending emails, organizing events, reading Scripture, washing dishes.
• learned a thing or two about protesting.
• marked nine years of marriage.
• helped my best friends pack up their apartment, and sent them on their way to Idaho with many tears.
• finished paying off our little silver car (we call her Adele).
• celebrated my eighth (!) Turkeypalooza with church friends.
• filled up half a dozen journals.

I’m looking forward to turning the calendar on 2018: I love the idea of a fresh start, but there’s also some good stuff I want to carry over from 2017. Wishing you a peaceful, hopeful start to the New Year.

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lessons in financial peace, and communication

I am married to a marriage and family therapist.

And up until about a month ago, we rarely talked about money.

I know. My sweet husband spends his days helping couples, teenagers and families talk through their biggest issues, and we usually don’t have a problem talking about ours. But since our financial situation has fluctuated rather wildly during our three years of marriage (due to graduate school, a cross-country move and shifting employment situations for both of us), and since we’re both frugal, make-it-work people, we’d adopted a make-it-work policy of budgeting, paying bills and treating ourselves once in a while. This policy was working pretty well – but we didn’t have an overall plan. We’d never actually sat down to have any sort of financial “meeting.”

Enter Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University class, which we’re taking this fall (along with about a dozen others at our church). I admit, Dave Ramsey’s style kinda drives me nuts (either the man drinks too much coffee or he’s just naturally caffeinated) – but his principles so far seem mostly practical and sound to me. And the course is forcing us to do what we’d never done: take a good hard look at our finances, and talk at length about our attitudes toward money, our spending/saving/giving habits, and our plans for the future. (And give us a big push toward knocking out some of our substantial student loan debt.)

I’ve picked up some useful tidbits from Dave’s video lessons, and from our post-lesson discussions with the group. (It doesn’t hurt that our course leader is a financial planner and CPA.) But by far the most formative, challenging part of the course has happened when I’ve sat down at the kitchen table with J, pencil and bank statements at hand, to discuss where our money’s going, and how we can save more, give more and manage it better. (Side note: I love Mint.com’s handy budgeting tools and pie charts, where you can see all your accounts in one place.)

We are not rich, nor are we accountants (and talking about money for too long stresses J out, so we’ve learned to take breaks and focus on the most important things during each session, rather than hashing out every single detail). But it feels good to be formulating a purposeful plan for our money, rather than flying by a slapdash strategy. It’s helping me think more deliberately about purchases large and small – and coming to terms with my own attitude, and fears, about money. Most importantly, it’s drawing me closer to the man with whom I share my life and bank accounts – and that, to quote our friends at MasterCard, is priceless.

Have you taken a financial management course? If so, what have you learned? (I’m always eager for more tips.)

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